PROJECT MANAGEMENT
the ‘T-minus’ reviews.”
With the buried services – cables and pipes and so on – the core data is received annually, but in multiple formats. The team turns all of that into a single CAD file for distribution to contractors.
Malone said: “It’s a huge manual process for all of us, on an annual basis, it takes two or three months to assimilate all of that information. There’s a huge responsibility there to avoid cable strikes and gas strikes, but the onus is still on the contractor to make sure there’s nothing there. There is a responsibility on them as well and they have to do their own double-checks on site, and any information they find is tracked back to us as well.”
Recently, the team has also become involved with flood risk assessments, due to Environment Agency requirements for Network Rail to determine what impact the Reading works will have on the environment and on flooding.
The team is also involved in helping with planning applications, producing graphics and images to show planners and the public what things will really look like.
Malone explained: “We get a lot of call to do things like that, and when you’re looking at a depot that’s two miles long, a viaduct that’s a mile-and-a-half long and 10 metres high in places, environmentally there’s a big impact, and Reading Borough Council are hot on our heels to account for it all.
“We maintain photographic records for the Reading project as well, which we hope to link to the relevant locations geospatially within ProjectWise, so we can see where photos were taken at any given time.”
Radio system coverage he said, remained “for the future”, but could have great poten- tial in modelling where black holes in radio coverage emerge.
Train timetable management is another aspiration. He said: “We might consider that in the future on other projects,
Below: Fergal Malone using the software at the Reading project offices.
Above: The signal sighting software.
simulating train stations.
movements through
“With the number of platforms we’re putting in, there are periods when other platforms are closed and taken out of use, so at that point it would be very helpful for the TOC and the station management to understand how the timetable gets affected and how they might want to plan diversions during construction works.”
Pedestrian flow, especially monitoring po- tential congestion ‘hotspots’ during con- struction works at the station, is something else the team is becoming involved with.
The team is already evaluating red zones during possessions, looking at how the work site will appear in reality to help the planners in advance of work starting. Malone spoke to Network Rail chief ex- ecutive David Higgins, on his visit to the Reading works, about the ways in which his team’s work could improve safety on the railways, by reducing the risk of elec- trocution, for example, by using their visu- alisation tools to highlight live versus dead electrification.
Signal sighting
Another major piece of work utilising the team’s skills and software tools is signal sighting, with visual simulations.
Malone calls that a “huge success story”, and notes that signal sighting is a major preoccupation of the Crossrail engineering data team at the moment.
On the Reading project, he said: “Using the models we’ve created, we can simulate where the signals will be in the future, and with the software we use, we can move signals literally within a moment of be- ing asked to. So if there’s a problem with
30 | rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 12
“An aspiration, but one that can really hap- pen quite quickly, is to automate signal sighting forms. That sounds like a small win, but is actually large. At the moment, when the signal sighting committee put together their forms, it’s a long, arduous task; any time there’s a change you have to re-do the form, that’s a pain. This, by automating it, could make their lives a lot easier. We hope to have that developed by the end of this project.”
Augmented reality
The next major stage will be augmented re- ality, already in use in gaming, architecture
a signal, we can look at all the various op- tions to consider how the design needs to be changed. It goes without saying that it’s proved itself as totally invaluable.”
The new platforms at the rebuilt Read- ing station, for example, will mean many changes to signalling, all while maintain- ing an operational railway. Ensuring driv- ers are aware of all of these is a major chal- lenge, and the simulations tied into the project model help do this.
Malone explained: “We can position sig- nals interactively, doing it there and then, rather than waiting. All of the changes we’re making within this environment, under the guidance of the signal sighting team, get reflected back and everything gets updated, which has a knock-on effect on all other designs.
“This is a major tool, as we can use it to produce driver training videos, for route learning. At Rugby, the cost saving was ma- jor, because we were able to do this sort of work in-house. It gives the drivers a better understanding of what to expect, and we’ve already produced one video for First Great Western drivers going into platform 4.
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