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Technical Meeting Papers

Technical Meetings are held three times per year.
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2024 – March – Zhu, Lauro & Nardi – Innovative Tablet Solution for Improving Rail Operation
By: Dr Bin Zhu, Gianluigi Lauro & Federico Nardi
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Sudholz – Passively Active – Warning systems for passive & occupation level crossings in agricultural settings
By: Thomas Sudholz
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Robinson – Barriers to innovation in signalling design, verification, and validation
By: Neil Robinson
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Moore – Signalling Principles – What are they and where do they come from?
By: Trevor Moore
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Khan & Kamarulzaman – FRMCS – Integrated Migration Strategy
By: Obaid Khan & Khairulzaman Kamarulzaman
Date Presented: March 12th, 2024

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


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2024 – March – Alvarez – Case Study – FRMCS Migration Path in Perth
By: Rodrigo Alvarez
Date Presented: March 13th, 2024

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. 


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2024 – August – Burns – Human Factors at Level Crossings
By: Peter Burns
Date Presented: August 21st, 2024

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


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2024 – August – Boss – Human aspects of managing cyber security in delivering ERTMS
By: John Boss
Date Presented: August 21st, 2024

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


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2022 – November – Youle – Qualitative analysis – the more efficient approach to managing risks SFAIRP
By: Patrick Youle
Date Presented: November 1st, 2022

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


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2022 – November – Hunter – Cybersecurity in the Railway Industry
By: Hugh Hunter
Date Presented: November 1st, 2022

Cybersecurity is a hot topic worldwide with regular attacks being performed against multiple domains.


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2017 – July – Gash – An engineer’s journey to achieving conscious competence

Author(s):
Date presented: July 18th, 2017

Cassandra Gash MIRSE, MIEAust, MAIPM, BEng(Hons), GDSignalling & Telecommunications, CPPM Melbourne Metro Rail Authority, Senior Signalling Project Manager This paper highlights the requirements and likely challenges a graduate engineer will encounter in their professional formative years, and provides recommendations on how to fast-track a career in the rail signalling industry. The gap in professional engineering competence is assessed through comparison of the competence of a graduate en- gineer from university compared to that required for the rail signalling industry. The commonly used 70:20:10 learning and development model is reviewed, in the context of the industry, so that graduate engineer learning, development, and experience can be tailored to address these gaps and support career advancement. The paper concludes with an examination of competence related Australian legislation and Rail Transport Operator’s requirements that an engineer must comply with to progress from a state of unconscious incompetence to conscious competence. This paper draws upon numerous sources and highlights the commonalities and some of the inconsisten- cies in approach to achieving competence.

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2017 – July – Motky et al – BYTING RAILWAY INTERLOCKING REQUIREMENTS

Author(s):
Date presented: July 18th, 2017

Jacek Mocki PhD, MSc, BEng CPEng MIRSE NPER MOTZKY Shane Curtin MBA, BEng AURIZON Yulan Liu MSc, BEng MIRSE, RPEQ AURIZON This paper is focused on one of the strategies that could be undertaken when approaching innovative areas in rail engineering. It describes an adoption of developing rail standards e.g. EULYNX and railML. Authors aim to look into an example of engineering process, describing ways to improve the process by applying some predictable innovation (innovation that delivers an expected outcome) techniques. An improved outcome from such development could be applied more efficiently to the benefit of reducing uncertainty of a designer, optimising asset usage, reducing the operational cost and many more.

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2017 – July – Baker – Queensland Rail: AWS to ETCS

Author(s):
Date presented: July 18th, 2017

Brett Baker BE, MBA, MIRSE, MRTSA Queensland Rail The principle form of train protection for the metropolitan rail region of Queensland has been the Automatic Warning system. In 1988 the ERICAB 700 Automatic Train Control system was introduced onto the regional North Coast Line of the Queensland Rail network. It was followed in 1994 by the WESTECT Automatic Train Protection system, which now provides train protection for over 2500 route kilometres on the regional rail network within Queensland. The Automatic Warning System remains the train protection system stalwart for the metropolitan rail network, ERICAB is no longer in use and the WESTECT Automatic Train Protection system is all but life-expired, so Queensland Rail now looks beyond these systems for the future application of train protection for the rail network – European Train Control System.

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2017 – March – Moore – Signalling system safety is NOT an absolute

Author(s):
Date presented: March 3rd, 2017

Trevor Moore Hon FIRSE FIEA Aust Australian Rail Track Corporation We often design a signalling system and continue its operation even though there are significant changes in train operating conditions. Do we assume that is still as safe as the day it was commissioned into service? Some cases are self-evident that safety has changed. If we increase the train speed over a level crossing we know that the approach warnings have to be reviewed and updated. Do we check and update if they have changed the road traffic classification to B double trucks? When and how should we review the signalling system for safety of operations? What should be the catalyst to undertaking a review? Should this be part of the standard practice for signal engineers managing infrastructure and for signal designers on new works? The paper addresses some of the situations that can arise leading to a change in the safety of the signalling system.  

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2017 – March – McDonald – Is RAMS all BULL for Electromechanical Equipment?

Author(s):
Date presented: February 25th, 2017

Wayne McDonald BE (Elec) FIRSE Siemens Limited Railways are required to operate safely and one of the methods to demonstrate this is type approval of signalling equipment. That approval must include documentation of high RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety) when applied in vital and even non-vital applications. Suppliers have provided such values, in some form or another, for electrical, electronic and programmable electronic equipment for many years. The limitations and applicability of these values have not always been well understood and they have often been misapplied. The decisions for product comparison or maintenance plans could therefore be compromised or invalid. More recently, purchasers, and personnel assessing type approval are demanding values such as SIL (Safety Integrity Level) and MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) for electromechanical equipment and systems. The standards currently used for programmable electronic systems clearly state that using them to derive values for electromechanical is inappropriate. This paper delves into the importance of understanding and applying meaningful RAMS values for signalling equipment and addresses the inappropriateness of SIL and MTBF for Electromechanical Equipment. It continues to offer some suggestions for how RAMS can be used for Electromechanical Equipment.

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2017 – March – Boshier – Technology based asset management

Author(s):
Date presented: February 25th, 2017

Steve Boshier FIRSE, FCILTA Auckland Transport Asset Management is an area that continues to develop through innovation, technical developments and through new ways of looking at whole of life management. In tough economic times, businesses often take short cuts with asset management in a bid to remain profitable. Its usually one of the first areas whose budget gets cut back for a whole range of reasons. Such a decision only provides a short term solution to a problem that ultimately gets worse and comes back to bite even greater. Technologies such as BIM, Mobility, Analytics, and a suite of ISO standards represents a coming of age for rail systems asset management. They are transforming the rail sector and are helping to drive a long term approach to maintenance with benefits. One that is now allowing staff to do more with less whilst allowing them to improve the asset reliability, availability and system safety.

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2017 – March – Leveque – Advanced features over ETCS for suburban railway operation

Author(s):
Date presented: February 25th, 2017

Dr Olivier Leveque Alstom Signalling – Australia New Zealand The advanced features over ETCS detailed in this paper are Virtual Block Sectioning and scalable Automatic Train Operation. These features can be incrementally implemented to meet the current and future business requirements of a suburban railway operation. A case study is presented to illustrate the performance benefits of a scalable ATO overlaid onto an ETCS solution for a suburban application.

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2017 – March – D’Cruz – Do we have the backbone to support emerging technologies?

Author(s):
Date presented: February 25th, 2017

Malcolm D’Cruz M.E. Mechatronics
 Public Transport Authority of Western Australia David Lim  MSc. Telecommunication Management UXC Ltd – A CSC Company Railways are always increasing the number of network services to cope with emerging technologies. The success of Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) depends on the ability of the backbone communication system to guarantee high bandwidths and reliability. Thus the traditional railway communication network is gradually moving towards a carrier grade network servicing both internal as well as external clients. The aim of this paper is to show how Software Defined Networks (SDN) adopted by telecom service providers as a common platform for all network services can benefit the railway networking environment to cope with constantly emerging technologies.

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2017 – March – Gillespie – Are CAD drawings the best way to design signalling systems

Author(s):
Date presented: February 25th, 2017

Rob Gillespie NTD Elec Eng.
 I&E Systems Pty Ltd Modern railway signalling systems now incorporate computer-based interlocking, and the wiring is predominantly simple input/output functions, so, is CAD really the best way to design these high integrity systems?

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2017 – March – Czerpko – Digital Connectivity

Author(s):
Date presented: February 8th, 2017

Nick Czeperko Independent Consultant Jacek Mocki CPEng MIRSE NPER MOTZKY This paper highlights how Digital Connectivity in Rail can provide detail information for better decision making and empower the travelling passengers before, during and after their travel.

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