The UK rail network has faced significant challenges for many years. Underinvestment, franchise changes, environmental conditions and changes in regulatory direction have all led to dissatisfaction with the current system. We’re exploring how innovation and digital technologies can be leveraged to positively impact the system.
Rail has been highlighted as a key driver for the British economy, contributing £43 billion in 2019. With the government targeting increased economic growth, creating efficiencies and increasing the usage of the system and surrounding economic hubs is more important than ever.
The UK economy is not only impacted by direct activities associated with the rail industry but also by the knock-on effect of nationwide industrial productivity. Every time a train is cancelled or delayed, whether it be a passenger or freight service, passengers or goods aren’t reaching their final destination on time or in some cases at all. In situations where passengers are travelling for work, this is having a direct impact on productivity for UK PLC, further stalling economic progress.
Innovation unlocks opportunities to significantly enhance operations and introduce efficiencies from other industries into the rail system. The government has set out to completely reform the UK rail system. The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, looks to renationalise passenger rail services and deliver significant improvements to passenger satisfaction, efficiency and train service delivery.
What areas could benefit from innovation?
Data, maintenance, contingency planning and safety are just a few areas that could benefit from innovation. Already, other industries are employing cutting-edge technologies to improve their operations, bringing measurable benefits. These technologies can be taken and applied to rail, providing great improvements to performance.
What are the challenges with using data in rail?
The amount of data is vast in the rail network. Routes, stations, stock, crew, platforms, speed restrictions, assets and asset renewal are just some of the data points to be considered. How this data is displayed varies between different operators and is often difficult to understand. The data is also held mentally by operating teams and isn’t always recorded. This leads to gaps in knowledge and less accurate decision making.
Innovations such as digital twins can aggregate multiple disparate data sources into one platform, providing greater visibility of information across the network. This information can be used to inform decision-making, support productivity and ensure a seamless knowledge transfer.
Can data be used for maintenance?
Yes. Analysing data to find usage patterns and deterioration can create a better understanding of wear, which can also feed into optimising maintenance schedules and asset replacement prioritisation. Utilising technologies such as simulation, we can predict when assets will need replacing and the impact on the surrounding environment if operators choose to replace one asset over another. Decisions can subsequently be made to ensure the most effective maintenance happens.
How can technology help reduce the impact of environmental changes?
Technology can simulate the impact of extreme weather and other environmental changes. Existing assets, while designed with certain levels of safety allowance, have not been subjected to the continuing severe weather the UK is now experiencing. As such, they are encountering forces that have not been experienced before. Therefore, using simulations to test these extreme cases means maintenance teams can make more informed decisions about replacing assets before they fail.
Severe weather impacts the rail system’s operational efficiency. At CFMS, we are digitally optimising timetables when extreme weather and other unexpected events happen. Currently, when severe weather is forecast, planning teams will normally receive 24-48 hours to replan the timetable, accounting for speed restrictions and any necessary line closures. This manual task is really resource intensive and often, planning teams have to submit and run a sub-optimal timetable.
Utilising advanced optimisation techniques, we can take the base timetable and apply speed restrictions on specific parts of the line and run this through an optimiser to create a candidate timetable that can inform decision making about delays and cancellations.
This technique can also be used to optimise staffing and stock availability, providing the necessary charts to inform decision making. For operators, this is a valuable innovation that saves time, freeing up planning teams to focus on more complex, value-adding tasks. This will also provide more reliable timetables, improving customer satisfaction and reducing delays, having a positive impact on productivity and the wider UK economy.
How can we learn from other industries?
Innovation in other industries is bringing remote visual inspection techniques into quality assurance capabilities and is enabling the use of robotics to inspect systems without needing a human operator present. This has potential in rail, allowing for the inspection of tracks or other assets in inaccessible places. From there, a team could then be deployed to the exact location with the required tools to fix a known issue, potentially shortening the time the line is closed or restrictions are in place. It will also have a positive impact on employee safety, reducing the time spent on active railways.
How can these technologies be leveraged?
Addressing the challenges set out by Network Rail in Control Period 7 and utilising the tech explained above could have a considerable positive impact on operational efficiency, passenger experience and rail access.
Other industries have innovations and insights that should be capitalised on. Taking the learnings that have contributed to greater efficiency or innovation onboard and applying them to rail is necessary to encourage the use of the system. Similarly, we should take learnings from other countries and look to those who operate their railways in an efficient and customer-centric manner.
The greatest tool that we have is the potential for collaboration within the industry. The current siloed structure where operators are targeted on different requirements is limiting the share of knowledge and innovation into different areas. Suppliers who provide services or products to a small number of operators could benefit from greater contracts. Operators could also then benefit from innovations that are shared from other areas of the industry.
Continually finding ways to improve the railways and deliver greater value to operators is important to ensure we continue to deliver a positive and desirable service to the overall end consumer – passengers.
Sources
Passenger Rail Usage – July to September 2024 (December 2024)
https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/s5bpixik/passenger-rail-usage-jul-sep-2024.pdf
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Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 – Parliamentary Bills (November 2024)
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3732
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Government should seize opportunity to grow passenger rail (RIA)
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RIA assess Govt progress on rail offer after six months and sets out 2025 offers and asks
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Transport secretary fires the starting gun on rail reform as Public Ownership Bill raches final stages in commons
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