TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
Complete control It
has been nearly two years since Network Rail awarded the contracts to three companies
to develop prototype traffi c management systems – an “integral” part of the wider plans to consolidate the work done at hundreds of signal boxes into 12 all-singing, all-dancing rail operating centres (ROCs).
That plan has been well-documented in previous issues, but focuses on the need to allocate workload more evenly to improve productivity, from an average of 72 SEUs (signalling equivalent units) per workstation at £3,800 per SEU at end 2011/12 to 91 SEUs per workstation at £3,200 per SEU by the end of CP5.
Some signallers and commenters have suggested the strategy has a whiff of ‘eggs in one basket’, but Network Rail says the current wide variance in the methods and geography of railway control is a major problem, from VDU workstations with wide spans of control down to mechanical lever frame signal boxes. Consolidation also allows integration with electrical control and better joint working with TOCs.
Linked with those plans, a modern traffi c management system automates some tasks and offers better real-time data to experienced operators for others, allowing – hopefully – prediction and resolution of real-time confl icts, just-in-time planning, and reconfi gurable control areas to manage disruption.
Advance notice of problems
Following rigorous testing, Thales UK won contracts worth a combined £28.8m to deploy its version of the technology – ARAMIS – at two ROCs, Cardiff and Romford.
Thales’ programme lead David Taylor told us: “Fundamentally, it improves performance.
“Our solution does enable certain things to be 68 | rail technology magazine Jun/Jul 14
Whatever you call them, they will have access to better-quality and real-time consolidated data compared to today, pulling in GPS radio tracking, train describer information, and so on. Disruption management and optimum pathing will be much easier, while the live data can also be passed straight to drivers via their DAS, to take account of potential confl icts.
Robin Gisby, Network Rail’s managing director
done in an automated way, but it is more about helping the operator. Today’s systems often don’t see a potential problem until it is just about to occur.
“Operators, quite frankly, do an incredible job to mitigate the impact of those problems. But traffi c management gives them ‘advance notice’ of issues and allows them to minimise the impact of those issues or completely eradicate them, before they become service-affecting and cause delays.
“The system identifi es different types of confl icts, for example, and then the operator can either manually resolve those confl icts, they can take guidance from the system, or the system can be set to address them automatically.”
These benefi ts in tackling confl icts to prevent incidents having major repercussions are a key benefi t of a traffi c management system, but it can also improve day-to-day performance by, for example, improving fl ow through complex junctions.
“It enables the operators to focus more on ensuring the trains are arriving on time than today, when the manual elements mean they cannot focus so closely on that.
“There is quite a difference from today’s way of working with signallers and control room staff, to what we would regard as traffi c managers or train service managers.”
Thales is the fi rst big winner when it comes to traffi c management, winning contracts worth nearly £30m to develop its technology at Cardiff and Romford. RTM spoke to the company’s programme lead David Taylor.
of network operations, said: “As the number of people and businesses relying on rail continues to grow, it is vital we have the technology to make the best use of Britain’s rail infrastructure. The traffi c management which will be deployed on the network uses tried and tested technology used on railways around the world to help deliver a leaner, more effi cient and reliable network.”
Customisable architecture
Versions of Thales’s technology are in use in 11 countries, it says. It won’t be quite as simple as just dropping it onto the UK rail network and watching it go, but Taylor said its design allows it to be easily confi gurable to any country’s rail network.
It’s well-proven in busy mixed traffi c environments such as Germany, he added.
There were three chosen prototype suppliers – Thales, Hitachi with its Tranista system and Signalling Solutions Ltd (SSL, the joint Alstom Transport Information Solutions UK and Balfour Beatty Rail business that has grown into a major player in recent years), which is using ICONIS. After two “very comprehensive” pre-qualifi cation documents, supplier dialogue sessions and over 40 workshops, all three suppliers were set up in ‘model offi ces’.
Scenario testing From summer 2013, 18 Network Rail and TOC
© DB7 Photography
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