REGISTER

Dr Frank Heibel
PhD MSc (Hon) MIEAust CPEng FIRSE

Doc Frank Pty Ltd

Travelling by train in a major Australian city has become an increasingly challenging experience. The drastically risen patronage over the last decade brought a number of inconveniences that affect passenger comfort: Crowded platforms, difficulty to board an already packed train, no vacant seating, huddling with fellow passengers, and delayed journeys with trains stacking up behind each other are unfortunately regular effects of peak hour traffic.

Transforming passenger transport towards higher capacity by building additional railway lines in CBD areas, as planned in Brisbane with Cross River Rail and Brisbane subway, turns into mega projects with very long lead times and pending uncertainties for funding – certainly not a quick fix. To some extent the same applies to platform lengthening for accommodating longer trains.

The transport plans for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth envisage the modernisation of existing signalling as a key measure for increasing capacity of the existing rail infrastructure, to allow running more trains and prevent debilitating congestion when passenger numbers continue to grow further.
This paper aims to point out a few benefits of modern Automatic Train Control (ATC) that may help transforming passenger transport, just as ATC transforms the signalling system legacy in Australia.