RAIL INNOVATIONS
Joint Technology Initiative
Prof Doherty discussed the Shift2Rail joint technology initiative (JTI), developed by the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC).
The JTI has a seven-year contract with workstreams that will focus on trains, train control, infrastructure, information technology and freight. These will be developed and improved in the autumn to create lighter, faster and cheaper trains, with assured higher brake rates.
Advances around automation raise questions about whether we need a driver in the cab and whether it is possible to auto-couple and decouple carriages on the move, Prof Doherty suggested. To read more about the debate on driverless trains, see page 52.
Other work will include new track design and intelligent asset management, as well as ticketing, journey planning and faster and lighter freight. A cross-system approach would use foresight to identify how potential solutions will change the expected future railway, he concluded.
University partnerships
The conference also saw university rail research centres present their current work and explain how this could be applied to industry challenges.
Prof Clive Roberts, from the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Railway Research and Education,
themes such as condition monitoring, traffic management and rail capacity.
Currently funded projects include energy data fusion for improved network energy efficiency management, visualisation of train delay impact data in order to improve decision making, winter preparation, conductor shoe monitoring, Thameslink traffic management, and the environmental impact of electrification.
Dr David Fletcher, director of the Rail Innovation and Technology Centre (RITC) at the University of Sheffield, spoke about ‘intelligent rail’ infrastructure, detection, communications, and materials.
The centre has been working on improving insulated rail joint design, which is currently responsible for a disproportionate amount of failures. Dr Fletcher highlighted the use of recycled composite sleepers and alternatives such as plastic, to be installed as a test this winter.
Prof John Andrews of the University of
Nottingham spoke about asset management and the need to achieve minimal life cycle costs, safe and reliable services, and to develop the “next generation” of asset management tools.
Work was ongoing on how assets degrade and to create predictive models to show the chance of an asset being in a certain state. This could lead to decision support and give indications for how long interventions would be effective.
At the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Rail Human Factors, Prof Sarah Sharples discussed how people and performance link with equipment and interfaces with organisations and systems.
She emphasised the importance of designing technology to make it work for people, and using intelligent systems to understand how much an individual member of rail staff can deal with in the real world.
Prof Sharples concluded with the need to “remember that humans are at the heart of the system”.
Prof William Powrie from the University of Southampton, a frequent contributor to RTM, described research into human factors, noise and vibration, and future infrastructure systems. This
involved remote video
monitoring, ballast migration, measuring the movement of a sleeper on a curve, earthworks monitoring, and embankments shrinking and swelling.
described their focus on
Finally Dr Tanya McMallum, senior policy and relationship manager at the RSSB, discussed how the RRUKA is harnessing academic excellence, providing a bridge between universities and industry.
Concept to commercialisation
Chivers explained how technology could be taken from concept to commercialisation through the HVM Catapult.
The HVM consortium, made up of seven centres, provides UK business with access to technology and expertise, and a critical mass of activity. Chivers highlighted the need for skills to make use of new technology and implement innovation.
He added that business-funded projects could be used to accelerate technology to commercialisation and called for sustained public funding to enable the UK to transform innovative ideas into products.
We can do more
Yianni told RTM: “We are trying to be very careful to target our activities to what we’re
rail technology magazine Oct/Nov 12 | 19
trying to achieve as a business. So that we’re not just working on technology for technology’s sake, we are dealing with real business problems and there is a pull from the business to work on various things. The universities have got a wealth of knowledge and experience and capability that this demonstrates that we are tapping into and I think we can do more.”
He discussed the importance of securing different sources of income for research and innovation technology for the future and said: “As we look forward now to the next five years or so, we have a horizon where we have visibility of where those funding streams are coming from, so that’s really helpful.”
The conference is getting bigger each year he said, and added that it was positive to see other conferences emerging in this space, including the RRUKA annual conference, and that they must coordinate their work together.
Yianni concluded: “It demonstrates there is a lot of activity and a lot of excitement in this area.”
www.rail-innovations.co.uk FOR MORE INFORMATION
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