202503 – Sudholz – Break of Gauge: Competencies in the Australian Signalling Project Environment

Signalling Project Resources (SPRs) are critical to project success, yet competencies for these roles are not standardised nor policed in the same manner as design, or Testing and Commissioning (T&C) competencies. This paper investigates the environment for SPR competencies across the Australian rail industry with a specific focus on Victoria, the various pathways to attaining the education, training and experience for these competencies and the potential for homogeneity in competencies in the future.

This paper assessed the need and identified the core skills required to perform SPR roles, the importance of the roles to projects and the need for competencies to be policed in a manner similar to that of design, and T&C roles.

By querying the RIW database, it was found that just five people hold a valid Signalling Project Engineer (SPE) Statement of Competency (SoC) and only 10 people hold a valid Signal Project Manager SoC for works on the Melbourne Metropolitan Rail Network; this despite the prolific expenditure on rail infrastructure in recent years and the number of resources required to support these projects. It was found that numerous Rail Transport Operators (RTOs) do not have publicly accessible matrices for SPR competencies, while differences between those that do have these roles result in misalignment between the jurisdictions. Lastly, it was found that generally SPRs do not hold professional engineering registration, while SoCs have an irregular approach to requiring professional registration.