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Assurance is increasingly being mandated for Australian rail projects as the means to satisfy ever-increasing governance requirements. The size and complexity of projects like Sydney Metro, Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel, and Brisbane’s Cross River Rail require consortium-based delivery models, be that Alliances, Public Private Partnerships, or some combination resulting in many interfaces, not only within the project delivery structure but with many stakeholders. Hence the need to assure that project outcomes will be achieved. Assurance however is not a guarantee of the project objectives. Assurance is about providing a level of confidence that the objectives will be achieved, and hopefully increasing that level of confidence as the project progresses through its development lifecycle. However, when delivering fixed assets and rolling stock, project sponsors and RTOs need to be assured that they are not just safe but are also fit-for-purpose in terms of functionality, performance (deliver the task and responsiveness), configurability, constructability & testability, reliability and availability, security, and supportability over the service life expected. The paper elaborates these fit-for-purpose attributes and proposes two key aspects for any Assurance Case; namely compliance and correctness.
Modern rail projects are complex. They use multiple systems and need to be planned, designed, constructed, interfaced, intergrated and tested in an agreed and assured manner to commission a safe, reliable, available and maintainable system. With the help of advanced technology, a Holistic Systems Engineering Assurance methodology can be implementaed at the beginning of a project and carried forward through the whole life cycle to ensure successfuc completion o fhte project. This paper answers: What is the holistic approach in Systems engineering assurance? Why do we need it? Where does it apply? How do we establish it for a complex rail project? and Detailed implementation strategy of the Holistic framework This paper aims to establish a well-defined Systems Engineering Assurance framework to achieve the performance levels that are important to and expected by stakeholders.
With a new generation of people and technologies involved within the rail industry, the need for a high performing, andwell understood Completions Process has never been greater. Projects are being pushed to do more work, more quickly,and more smartly, resulting in the Completions Process being ignored until it is too late. For many project personnel,completions is viewed as the end phase of the project, a part of implementing new technologies, or the close-out of staffcompetency requirements. I argue Completions is much more than that, and an area that is most often misunderstood. The Completions Process starts at the beginning of the works and is only completed when stakeholders are provided withthe promised deliverables and outcomes. This means project teams delivering long after physical works are complete.The key to achieving the promised outcomes is proper planning and having the right people accountable for driving theprocess. In addition, these people need to be supported by clear frameworks and easy to use technology systems. This paper provides a Completions framework that ensures the end users receive the full benefit of their investments, andthat the assets being delivered can be properly operated and maintained. The Completions Process starts at the beginningof the project with the end very much in mind, and success is achieved by using technology and a progressive Completionsapproach. With this process, projects can be delivered on time and within budget. Stakeholders are provided with whatthey need, and the project team can walk away knowing that they have delivered what they promised.
In October 2013, the author and his colleague presented a white paper to the IRSE Perth Technical Meeting entitled“ETCS L2 and CBTC over LTE – Convergence of the radio layer in advanced Train Control System”. The paperdescribed the trends towards using increasingly similar hardware platforms to implement different Train Control Systemapplications, and how that trend could affect the radio component of those same Train Control Systems. The paper identified 3GPP defined Long-Term Evolution (LTE) as an emerging radio technology that could act as acommon train-to-trackside transport layer that replaced the existing radio layers of the main Automatic Train Control applications of the day, European Train Control System (ETCS) and Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC). Half a decade has passed since that paper was first presented, and natural passage of time begs the question: what hasbeen the evolution of Automatic Train Control systems since then? Have our 2013 predictions proved accurate? Andwhat can be said about what is likely to happen in the next five years? This paper will re-visit the postulates presented back in 2013 and review them against the actual technological evolutionof the last five years, by drawing a picture of the current state of affairs in this technology space.
Paul Szacsvay BE(Elec) MAdmin FIRSE SNC-Lavalin Transport & Infrastructure Kershan Pillai BE(Elec)/BCom MIEAust SNC-Lavalin Transport & Infrastructure SUMMARYBeginning with the introduction of chopper controlled trains in the late 1980s, the Sydney rail network has developed and applied standards for compatibility of new rolling stock with signalling train detection systems. While the fundamentals of testing have remained unchanged, the standards applied and the amount of testing performed have grown as rolling stock evolved and new vulnerabilities were found. New approaches to project delivery and structural changes to the client organisation have added to the complexity of the testing and approval process
Charles PageBSc. MBA FIRSEHead of Business Development & Strategy, Siemens Mobility, Australia Bernhard StammBSc. MBA FIRSESenior Expert for ERTMS, Siemens Mobility, Switzerland SUMMARYThe renewal and expansion of metropolitan rail networks frequently includes the objective of safely increasing capacity in an environment of constrained physical infrastructure and complex movements of other traffic. With the availability of high capacity and flexible mainline train control solutions, such as the European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2, attention has moved to the addition of advanced features to deliver further increases in capacity and efficiency. This includes Automatic Train Operation (ATO), combined with enhanced forms of dynamic scheduling and traffic management. This involves both technical and operational innovation but also creates opportunities for more efficient and reliable services
Fabio Senesi M.Sc., PhD, MBA Rete Ferroviaria Italiana S.p.A Federico Nardi BCompE (Hons), RE(OIGenova), RPEQ (Elec), MIRSE Ansaldo STS Australia Pty Ltd Nazzareno Filippini M.Sc. Rete Ferroviaria Italiana S.p.A Ronak Trivedi B.Eng, M.Eng, M.Bus Senior Project Engineer Ansaldo STS Australia Pty Ltd SUMMARY The railways serving Australian capital cities are no different to many railways around the world that face the challenge of rapidly growing populations in their urban areas. Providing improved capacity on existing lines and building new lines to deliver increased services, reducing operating costs, and improving the customer experience all feature as goals for the railway’s over-arching objective of contributing to the creation of liveable cities. The application of an innovative ETCS solution is one key strategy that is available to assist in achieving this objective by offering an opportunity to: Minimize infrastructure upgrading by improving network capacity Trains Per Hour and Trains Paths Per Hour through implementing the latest ETCS baseline and smartest TMS, along with interoperable ATO over ETCS. Provide dynamic updating of trips/journeys, improving customer experience by informing them in real time of any impact to their journey times. Update key assets/infrastructure information by increasing the ability to respond to network disturbances/issues in a faster manner. Drive the trains to the most efficient speed profiles, thereby reducing energy demands on the network and improving service capacity. The application of ETCS Level 3 functionalities coupled with innovative solutions for train integrity management provide the key pillars of a High Density solution. The Italian Railway has always been a pioneer in ETCS applications, starting with first ETCS Level 2 line in revenue service in 2005, and now with the current application of the High Density solution for busy areas like Milan Junction. By freely sharing the experience on ETCS projects from a major European operator like Italian Railway this paper envisages to provide valuable underpinning for similar ETCS projects foreseen in the very near future in Australia.
Bill Palazzi B.Eng (Elec) Hons 1 palazzirail SUMMARY A number of railways across Australia are now moving to adopt new network control systems in order to maximise the value (capacity, efficiency, safety) of their rail asset. An integrated and coherent approach to these new network control systems has the potential to provide many benefits to all sections of the industry, and to the economy. Conversely, a disjointed approach will have consequences that will last for many years, including higher costs and lower competitiveness for rail transport. The paper considers: The status of the industry today (breadth of managers, operators, signalling and safeworking systems) Advanced signalling initiatives underway How we can avoid a new break of gauge – a framework for decision making Specifically, this paper outlines an approach to ensuring a coherent strategy across the national freight network. This strategy has been developed in conjunction with above and below rail businesses, to ensure that it addresses the business objectives for both. The strategy set out a framework to guide future decisions: an acceptable National Network Control System outcome must be Safe, Effective, Upgradeable, Scalable, Harmonised and Interoperable. Based on this framework, a number of essential steps have been identified to ensure an acceptable outcome assuming that currently announced initiatives proceed to their conclusion. Key amongst these is the development of an interoperability solution between ATMS and ETCS Level 2; this initiative has now been committed to by Transport for NSW as part of its Digital Systems program, and will be pursued in conjunction with ARTC. A successful outcome from this work will be a significant step to achieve the overall objective – a coherent national strategy for network control systems, which avoids creating a digital break of gauge.
JOSEPH SHEAD Incorporated Engineer, MIRSE Ansaldo STS A Hitachi Group Company SUMMARY Major projects today request high performance criteria for Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety of Signalling Systems often referring to be compliant with Standard EN 50126/9. Considering that, it would be an extensive task to condense the standard into this paper, which will concentrate on the Safety aspects and the Reliability of Signalling systems. Safety in itself we can expand in a number of ways take for instance the title of RAMS, this is frequently extended to RAMSS, which includes the aspect of Security and these security features will be discussed. Reliability on the other hand goes hand in hand with Availability but namely addresses the issue of probability.
Noel Burton BSc. (Hons), MIRSE Engineering Manager NZ, Siemens Mobility Pty Ltd SUMMARY The European Train Control System (ETCS) has now established itself globally as the train protection system of choice for many heavy rail networks. This is largely due to its open standards and multi-vendor support. ETCS was rolled out across the Auckland suburban rail network a few years ago, with the sole aim of improving safety. Following the introduction of ETCS, the safe working ecosystem of rules, signalling principles and ETCS configuration have been reviewed and optimised. Changes have been made for scenarios where it was identified that operational improvements could be attained without compromising safety. This paper shares descriptions of some of the ETCS related improvements that have been successfully commissioned in Auckland. It is hoped that the successes of these changes in Auckland encourages other ETCS ‘owners’ to develop ideas for other improvements as well. Changes made in Auckland, that are discussed, include: changes to the Driver’s rulebook, defensive driving strategies, warner route principles, enforcement of speed restrictions and the interaction with level crossings for stopping trains at stations. The paper is intended to give a high level engineering based description of some of these solutions and the reasons behind them.
In this paper, we would like to introduce an innovative proposal based on the research conducted by the Hitachi Rail Innovation team to further improve the existing available tablet application, particularly
This Paper investigates the issues regarding use of passive level crossings for livestock movements in the agricultural industry. This unavoidable practice presents a different risk profile to the typical user, with livestock movement being
I started in signalling more than 30 years ago at British Rail, where I learnt how to design interlockings, initially in relay circuits, and then by programming Solid State Interlockings. This work sparked my interest in safety critical syste
The term signalling principles is often referenced with regards to the design of a signalling system. It is also used as part of the title of a person ‘Principles Verifier’ or ‘Principles Tester’. Some rail managers also reference signalling p
This paper offers a detailed FRMCS integrated migration strategy as a preparatory guide for current GSM-R users, particularly Rail Transport Operators (RTOs), as well as for projects in the planning and developmen
The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia (PTA) is currently building a new mobile radio and backhaul transmission communications network across the Perth metropolitan electrified railway network.
Today’s railway fatalities are arguably more likely to occur at level crossings than in the train collisions we tend to focus most attention on controlling. Designing for level crossing safety can be messy and grey, especially when the dependen
The Netherlands is rolling out the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) across the national network. The government created a Programme Directorate to manage the rollout. Cyber security for both ERTMS as well as the transportation syst
To support the acceptance of safety risk for configuration changes to railways, systems engineering recognises both qualitative and quantitative hazard and risk assessment methods. Quantitative analysis can be perceived as objective and quali
Cybersecurity is a hot topic worldwide with regular attacks being performed against multiple domains.