Research,
Development
and Innovation
quarterly summary
Q4 2016
Contents
Customer experience p2
Whole system p10
• TOC’15 competition funded projects set off
during March
• Solutions found to Automatic Warning System failures
• A £1m competition to encourage more visitors to
travel by rail to see hidden gems across the UK has
been launched by the Department for Transport
with support from RSSB
• Systems to manage social media in the aftermath
of a major rail incident
Infrastructure p6-7
• Repoint edges one step closer to prototype
development
• Money-saving project to avoid bridge reconstruction
wins industry award
• New research provides guidance and assessment
process for running faster trains over bridges
• New tool helps to improve level crossing safety
Rolling stock p8-9
• Winners of £250,000 prize for applying robotics to
rail announced
• New competition to find good vibrations
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• R&D supporting delivery of the Platform Train Interface
Strategy (T1037 and T1029)
Innovation p11
• New portal for rail innovation funding
Knowledge searches p12
• Objective approach to passenger seat comfort (S240)
• Next Generation Closed Loop Train Toilets Technology
(S242)
• SPARK search website launches new horizon
scanning portal
In the next quarter p13
• £4m innovation competition to improve rail
services launched
• Faster, safer, better boarding and alighting – RRUKA
call launch
Introduction
The Research, Development and Innovation directorates at RSSB work to support the vision of the Rail Technical
Strategy to improve the railway, while continuing to support the industry by providing solutions to current railway
problems and opportunities.
There are currently 86 research and development projects and 76 innovation programmes at different stages of
development and delivery across the two teams. The following updates represent a portion of good news stories.
If you would like to find out more about any individual projects visit www.sparkrail.org and search for a key word or
the project number (usually beginning with T) or visit RSSB.co.uk RSSB l RD&I quarterly summary
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Customer Experience
Delivering customer experience
excellence
TOC’15 competition funded projects
set off during March
Delivering customer experience excellence for users
of the railway is one of the principal elements of the
Rail Technical Strategy and the work carried out by the
research, development and innovation teams at RSSB.
Six of the nine funded projects started work during the last
quarter, with the remaining scheduled to be completed
in May.
Improving customer experience is an aim of two
innovations competitions which have been a priority
in the last quarter.
Each of the projects is charged with improving customer
experience through innovation.
The Arriva Group was allocated £3m of the £6m cofunding available as part of TOC’15 for their portfolio of six
projects focusing on the twin themes of data exploitation
and customer experience. It was found to demonstrate a
cohesive and strategic approach to innovation, which has
the potential to deliver significant benefits to the industry.
Govia gained £2m to look at solutions which will reduce
overcrowding, both in stations and on trains. The portfolio
of projects will enable customers to make informed travel
choices, improve the company’s live decision making
about capacity, and enable better strategic planning using
historical and forecasted crowd modelling. This will help
reduce crowding by dispersing passenger loads across
more services.
First Great Western are focusing on next generation train
Wi-Fi which presents a significant opportunity to enhance
customer experience, satisfaction and productivity and
the management of information during train disruption
through live GPS gateway improving customer
information systems.
New competition to boost rail tourism
A £1m competition to encourage more visitors to travel by
rail to see hidden gems across the UK has been launched
by the Department for Transport with support from RSSB.
Aimed particularly at heritage railways and community
rail partnerships the competition will offer grants to rail
operators for innovative ideas and trials. It hopes to
encourage more tourists and make it easier to explore the
UK by rail.
The competition is expected to generate around 20
winners, who will receive grants ranging from £25,000
to £75,000 to develop their ideas.
Projects could include improving the connectivity of
heritage and community rail, improved disability access,
special ticketing offers and better cycle facilities at stations.
A pitching event will take place in London on 10 May.
Systems to manage social media in
the aftermath of a major rail incident
Social media can be both a help and a hindrance when
an incident occurs as large amounts of information, data
and noise flood social media channels. This can cause
confusion and delay when organisations try to establish
which updates contain vital information and try to respond
as required.
An ATOC led study funded through the RSSB Grant
Scheme has established the feasibility of developing a
triage system to help railway companies to manage the
high volumes of social media posts which would follow a
major rail incident.
This would enable responses to be prioritised to support
the management of the incident’s impact on passengers
both in terms of immediate requirements and post
incident inconvenience.
Industry, led by ATOC, are now considering the full
development of a tool to deliver this capability.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure
In order to continue to deliver a highly effective service to
increasing customer numbers the infrastructure must be
simple, reliable and cost-effective but also able to adapt
to the changing requirements of the industry.
Changes to infrastructure are costly and affected by
many external factors. Programmes facilitated by RSSB
are dedicated to supplying new solutions to long standing
challenges and finding out more about how to deal with
external factors.
The projects which we have progressed over the past
quarter include: supplying new options to switch design ,
understanding more about the effect electrification and
new rolling stock has on current bridge structures and
working to make level crossings safer.
Repoint edges one step closer to
prototype development
RSSB funded Loughborough University switches and
signalling design project Repoint breaks through into the
next stage of development.
The breakthrough railway technology masterminded
by University engineers seeks to improve switches and
signalling to eradicate existing design issues, a problem
experienced by the GB rail industry for nearly 200 years.
Using safety concepts derived from aerospace and the
nuclear industries, Repoint allows redundant, fail-safe
actuation and locking of track switches for the first time.
This means that a failure of a single actuator element
will not cause the failure of the entire switch, allowing
trains to continue until such a time as maintenance
becomes feasible
The next phase will see a full scale, prototype track switch
developed and deployed. Once implemented, Repoint
aims to increase reliability, reduce maintenance costs
and boost capacity on the railways.
For further information please visit the Loughborough
University project page.
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Money-saving project to avoid bridge
reconstruction wins industry award
An RSSB project which has the potential to save the rail
industry millions of pounds by avoiding the need to rebuild
bridges across the network won an AECOM UK & Ireland
Excellence Award last month.
Electrification schemes have traditionally faced the
challenge of making more space under bridges to let
overhead electric lines pass underneath, usually requiring
expensive reconstruction works.
AECOM’s solution looks at new track bed products
and construction techniques which have recently been
introduced to the market, and examines whether they
can reduce the depth of track bed to create more space.
The AECOM award for Delivering Technical Excellence
was awarded to this project, with judges saying it showed
AECOM is helping RSSB to push the industry forward
and address a specific challenge associated with
electrification programmes.
‘The dynamic response of bridges
to high speed trains continues to
be a complex and challenging
area for structural engineers
and infrastructure managers.
This research has advanced our
understanding and will enhance
future management of this interface
through update to rail industry
standards’
New research provides guidance and
assessment process for running faster
trains over bridges
The operation of the latest higher speed passenger
trains across bridges represents a particular engineering
challenge. Running larger and faster trains over bridges
can cause excessive vibrations, risks of resonance, and
ballast instability – all of which can result in safety critical
effects and significant cost.
The complex and varied characteristics of bridges and
associated compatibility with different types of trains
can have a significant effect on direct and indirect
costs; including capital, operating expenditure, network
capability, and availability.
This research has improved the process of assessing
compatibility and developed guidance and simple rules
for use by bridge assessors and designers.
The key benefits from this research are:
• The enhanced knowledge of bridges on the GB network and the dynamic response of bridges across a range of types and forms.
• A greater understanding of the effect train design has on the dynamic response of GB bridges, which will inform future bridge design and rolling stock evolution.
• A refined train/bridge compatibility assessment process, through the use of established load models and simple rules, which potentially negates the requirement for detailed analysis of specific bridges and bridge types.
• Input to the future development of Eurocodes to avoid substantial remediation of the GB bridge stock.
Ben Wilkinson, Principal Engineer, Network Rail
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New tool helps to improve level
crossing safety
With the help of RSSB research, a new tool has been
developed to improve management of risk at level
crossings which have protecting signals.
The tool will enable Network Rail to robustly and efficiently
assess the risk posed by trains which pass a signal at
danger and travel onto a level crossing with users present.
It takes into account a wide range of factors affecting the
risk of a train passing a signal directly before a crossing
and helps to identify the most appropriate and effective
risk mitigation measures given the specific characteristics
of each crossing.
With an increasing proportion of level crossings around the
network being modernised to include protecting signals,
the availability of this tool which embodies good practice
will reduce the time and effort involved in taking the right
decisions to protect crossings safely.
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Rolling stock
Rolling stock
Over recent months we have focused on rolling stock
research projects, awarding grants to four projects
exploring the potential for robotics and autonomous
systems to improve rolling stock maintenance and
launched a competition to find new solutions to decrease
the cost of track repair and running gear maintenance.
Winners of £250,000 prize for
applying robotics to rail announced
Four winners of the Application of Robotics and
Autonomous Systems to Rolling Stock Maintenance
feasibility studies competition, facilitated by RRUKA,
have been selected to share funding of £250,000.
The competition, launched in November 2015, called
for blue-sky ideas about how to make use of robotic
and/or autonomous systems to carry out rolling stock
maintenance, servicing and inspections. The aim is to
reduce maintenance time and cost, and increase the
reliability of inspections.
The four projects that have been funded are tackling a
number of areas, including fluids service tasks, exterior
cleaning and wheel/axle inspections.
The winners include:
• Cab Front Cleaning Robot, led by Cranfield University and Heriot Watt University
• Enhancing and automating non-destructive testing techniques for railway wheel-sets, led by Southampton Solent University
• Feasibility of the Use of Autonomous Robotic Systems for Wheelset Reworking, led by the University of Birmingham
• Robust Automated Servicing of Passenger Train Fluids (RASPT-F), led by Brunel University
Further information about the projects and competition
can be read via www.rruka.org.
New competition to find good
vibrations
RSSB Innovation Directorate have launched a £4.5m
co-funded competition to support vehicle based
innovations which make technical improvements to rail
vehicles to reduce costs relating to wheelset & suspension
maintenance and track damage, whilst remaining within
the GB gauge and maintain passenger comfort levels.
The costs associated with repairing and maintaining
track damage and vehicle running gear is a long standing
challenge for the rail industry amounting to an estimated
cost of £350m plus, per annum.
This competition will make funding available for
winners who propose innovations which make technical
improvements to rail vehicles, reducing track damage,
wheel and suspension maintenance costs, and increase
the use of vehicles for both fast and slow lines.
“In addition to finding new
solutions to the challenges faced
by maintaining the track and the
vehicle running gear, improving
the technology opens up the
opportunity for greater flexibility
for the use of trains on both slow
and fast lines and will also help
improve the levels of comfort
experienced by passengers.”
Neil Webster, RSSB, Innovation Programme
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Whole system
Whole system
The GB railway has often been designed as single subsys-tems and not as a whole system. This poses a number
of challenges when trying to invest in improvements and
future developments.
Two of the challenges involve investment in solutions
which other parts of the system will benefit from and
working in collaboration to develop new systems which
will improve shared efficiencies.
Solutions found to Automatic
Warning System failures
A growing number of Automatic Warning System failures
recently led to an RSSB research project to determine
if there is a systematic cause and to identify available
options for reducing the number of failures and their
impact on the industry.
R&D supporting delivery of the
Platform Train Interface Strategy
(T1037 and T1029)
Accidents during boarding and alighting accounted for
5.5 fatalities and weighted injuries during 2014/15, 12%
of passenger risk, figures that these research projects will
help to reduce. Two complementary projects have been
completed this quarter providing tools and knowledge
to enhance the capability of the industry to improve the
platform train interface, bringing safety benefits as well
as potential reductions in dwell time. One has created a
comprehensive database of platform-train gap positions
using previous research which took measurements along
over 5,000 platforms and cross-referencing them against
58 different types of rolling stock.
A number of recent incidences on the DC electrified
network of Automatic Warning System (AWS) giving the
wrong safety critical information to drivers of on track
machines resulted in the wrong warning sound being
delivered to drivers. The system has been sounding a
bell which indicates a green signal instead of a horn
sound indicating a red signal (Code 5 failure). Numerous
investigations have found no specific fault either on the
infrastructure or the rolling stock equipment.
This data is now available to RSSB members via SPARK,
and will enable the railway industry to better locate
where potential hazards are likely to occur and identify
suitable mitigation measures. It is already being used
by Cross Country Trains and Network Rail, and in future
has potential to inform rolling stock cascade decisions,
accessibility initiatives and the GB strategy for platform
position. It complements the creation of new web tool
and app which will enable better risk assessments to take
place on platforms. The tool is currently being piloted
with three TOCs and Network Rail and is expected to be
launched more widely in June.
Initial investigations by Network Rail, primarily on the Kent
route, indicated that the failures were occurring primarily
on trains with standard sensitivity AWS receivers operating
over the extra strength AWS magnets which are provided
on DC electrified lines.
A consistent approach to station risk assessment at the
PTI, together with the ability to track assessments and
mitigations across multiple stations will enable industry
to prioritise mitigations in the right places, ensuring that
investments are effective in improving passenger safety.
The findings of RSSB research have shown that relatively
small changes to maintenance and operating parameters
of the system will significantly reduce the problem and
number of AWS Code 5 failures. The recommended
changes include minor amendments to standard, RGS
GE/RT8075 and a resulting potential to save the railway
industry thousands of pounds on investigative effort on
each AWS Code 5 failure.
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Innovation
New portal for rail innovation funding
The new portal, which is hosted by RSSB, acts as a
gateway. It gives small and medium enterprises and
innovators in large organisations access to information,
people and organisations which can help them build
technology to improve the British railway.
This site has been put together to help simplify the very
complicated innovation landscape in rail, and supply
contact information for the organisations and associations
which may be able to help to support innovations.
The page was built to meet the identified user
requirements, with feedback requested throughout the
development process. It is structured to supply easy
access to information about a range of topics,
programmes, initiatives and resources that may help.
By bringing all the various streams of information
together, in one place, RSSB are aiming to encourage
organisations from within the industry and outside to
increase their innovation efforts to deliver the railway
for the future.
Knowledge
Knowledge
The collection and distribution of knowledge throughout
the rail sector is integral to continuous improvement and
opportunities to develop the whole system and innovate.
This quarter two notable knowledge searches have taken
place and SPARK has launched a horizon scanning hub.
Objective approach to passenger seat
comfort (S240)
A new knowledge search has been published which
provides an overview of objective approaches to
measuring seat comfort ranging from foam and
cushion properties and seat design features related to
anthropometric data and sitting posture, to methods to
quantify pressure distribution and vibration transmission.
The knowledge search highlighted that rather than being
a subjective measure, the issue of seat comfort is a highly
complex topic, and one which the industry takes seriously.
Next Generation Closed Loop Train
Toilets Technology (S242)
On-board toilets are vitally important, yet at the same
time they suffer from reliability problems and present
the logistical challenge of regularly emptying controlled
emissions tanks.
This knowledge search, conducted as a collaboration
between the RSSB team and external innovation experts,
has delivered a comprehensive review of emerging
technologies that could tackle both these issues. It
highlighted that the most promising technologies given
their readiness level and impact are likely to be black water
processing approaches which could reduce tank emptying
frequencies from days to months.
SPARK search website launches new
horizon scanning portal
A new horizon scanning portal has been launched within
SPARK. The portal is designed to help share key resources
with rail industry specialists and rail stakeholders who have
an interest in horizon scanning.
It includes the main definitions, tools and techniques,
issues and topics, external experts and centres of expertise
in the field as well as links to recent horizon scanning
reports. The portal also aims to be the starting point of a
new community of interest within the UK transport sector.
The Horizon scanning portal has already sparked some
interest among rail stakeholders, getting 787 views
within one month of its launch and has received positive
feedback from both Network Rail and ATOC.
‘I have reviewed the portal and find
the information very useful and the
layout easy to navigate.
It provides a platform for specialists
like myself to get involved without
being burdensome. I like it and
applaud your work’
Network Rail User
Availability of this accessible yet comprehensive scan
of technologies will inform industry parties on both
short and long term solutions worth further investigation
or investment.
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In the next quarter
£4m innovation competition to
improve rail services launched
TOC’16 challenges train operators and suppliers to work
together to develop new and innovative ways to improve
performance, reliability and safety on the railway while
also enhancing the customer experience of travelling
by train.
The competition will open at a launch and briefing event
on 19 May 2016 and will close on the 16 September 2016
further collaboration events will take place throughout
the summer.
Faster, safer, better boarding and
alighting – RRUKA call launch
RSSB, via the Rail Research UK Association (RRUKA), is to
invest up to £500,000 in academic-led feasibility studies
to address two separate challenges related to the Platform
Train Interface (PTI) in order to reduce dwell times and
reduce safety risk.
A networking event is to be held on 26 May to give the
academic community the opportunity to get a clearer
idea of industry challenge, find partners (both industry
and academic) and form ideas on potential solutions.
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Email enquirydesk@rssb.co.uk
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Twitter@RSSB_rail
Webwww.rssb.co.uk
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