NextGen Data-Driven Timetable Performance Optimisation Tool
This project was one of the winners in the First Of A Kind 2022 competition run by Innovate UK.
In this document, this is said about the project.
Project No: 10037862
Project title: NextGen Data-Driven Timetable Performance Optimisation Tool
Lead organisation: ARTONEZERO LIMITED
Project grant: ££157,826
Public description:
During the pandemic, the on-time reliability of services significantly increased due to the reduction
in the number of services and passengers.
However, as passengers have returned to the railway performance has once again deteriorated.
This has an even greater impact on the industry post-pandemic as passengers’ expectations for services that are reliable and run on-time is even higher. Increased delays and passenger dissatisfaction therefore leads to an even greater decreased revenue from ticket sales.
Poor performance is in large part due to a poorly planned timetable that is often operationally unachievable or cannot handle minor perturbations. This is due to the timetable usually being planned with simulations and the method does not in how trains performing in reality at junction or stations.
Through years of working closely with performance, planning and operational teams, we’ve identified that by using granular train movement data and machine learning techniques, the actual performance of the existing timetable could be accurately calculated. This would enable planners with accurate information to make faster and better planning decisions that are based on real-world evidence.
Our Timetable Analysis tool will deliver automatically updated insights and recommendations to planners that is highly aligned to the planning process. Utilising both on-track (track circuit) and onfleet (GPS and OTMR) data, the tool will provide an integrated view to both Network Rail and TOC teams.
Fundamentally this tool will result in a step change in the speed and quality of timetable planning, moving away from the use of limited simulations and anecdotal experience to a fully evidenced-based approach.
EventGo – Intelligent Rail Service Demand Forecasting for Event-Based Travel
This project was one of the winners in the First Of A Kind 2022 competition run by Innovate UK.
In this document, this is said about the project.
Project No: 10037294
Project title: EventGo – Intelligent Rail Service Demand Forecasting for Event-Based Travel
Lead organisation: YOU. SMART. THING. LIMITED
Project grant: £249,946
Public description:
Aim: EventGo will demonstrate a first-of-a-kind solution for accurately predicting how large visitor events impact demand for specific railway services, generating advance insight on rail capacity, and enhancing the ability of TOC planning teams to optimally plan and deliver railway timetables and services. Data-enabled decision-making is expected to improve overall TOC operational performance, as demand is more precisely matched with supply in order to realise new cost efficiencies, improve yield, and deliver enhanced customer experiences. The project outcomes address the competition’s plan resilience and recoverability theme.
Challenge: Large visitor events create extreme demand peaks within the railway network. Though such events are often scheduled months in advance, accurately predicting how this demand is likely to impact a specific scheduled railway service is notoriously complex due to the lack of advance data about visitors’ travel plans. In leu, TOCs often rely on best guess estimations. As recent UEFA Champions League finals in Pairs demonstrated, underestimating visitor travel can have severe consequences for an organisation’s reputation, and visitor safety.
Project: A mature EventGo prototype solution will be deployed by UK TOC planning team to predict how a series of sporting fixtures between January and March 2023 in the Yorkshire region are likely to impact time-tabled railway services. During this period, partners will investigate how advanced insight generated by EventGo can be exploited by planners to make intelligent adjustments to scheduled services, e.g., adding capacity to specific services to match high
demand, to ensure optimal asset utilisation and deliver the highest level of customer experience.
Value: Demonstration in a live railway environment allows partners to both verify the accuracy of the model’s rail travel demand prediction, and to evidence the business value such intelligence can have on TOC operations. In addition, accrued results will facilitate product approval procedures and raise the visibility of the novel solution in the target market.
Consortium: The project is led by You. Smart. Thing. (“YST”), a specialist in intelligent mobility solutions, and supported by two UK TOCs, a top-tier sporting institution and stadium management company, and regional government partners. Professional project management is provided by In The Round (“ITR”), a UK-based consultancy specialising large visitor events travel management.
My Thoughts And Conclusions
I have been caught up in bad event planning several times and feel that this project could be very useful to plan passenger movement at large events.
I doubt, it will be a solution, that only has UK applications.
Automating Freight Access Right Management And Spot Bidding Using Novel And Modern Software To Drive Modal Shift From Road To Rail
This project was one of the winners in the First Of A Kind 2022 competition run by Innovate UK.
In this document, this is said about the project.
Project No: 10039135
Project title: Automating Freight Access Right Management And Spot Bidding Using Novel And Modern Software To Drive Modal Shift From Road To Rail
Lead organisation: HACK PARTNERS LTD.
Project grant: ££322,420
Public description: Automating today’s manual processes associated with access right management and spot bidding and wrapping these digital processes in an intuitive, integrated, modern, bespoke and scalable user system. The benefits of this innovation are not only cost efficiency but also enabling a much better experience to freight customers to drive modal shift.
Levelling Up Freight
This project was one of the winners in the First Of A Kind 2022 competition run by Innovate UK.
In this document, this is said about the project.
Project No: 10037240
Project title: Levelling Up Freight
Lead organisation: 3SQUARED LTD.
Project grant: £393,271
Public description:
Background
Rail freight is vital to Britain. It contributes almost £2.5bn to the economy and plays a big part in reducing congestion and emissions. Rail is more environmentally friendly than road, with every tonne of freight transported by rail producing 76% less emissions compared to road (RDG “Levelling Up Britain” 2021). The green benefits of rail freight are being driven heavily by the DfT with incentive schemes such as Modal Shift Revenue Support (MSRS) – a £20m grant, which
freight carriers can bid for a share of to support modal shift to rail.
Despite widescale use of MSRS, finding new freight routes for additional trains is challenging because:
- Road haulage is seen as easier and more accessible than rail freight, especially at short
notice, for short journeys and for single containers. - Highways are less regulated with no significant barriers to commercial participation, and
therefore are free to use the latest technologies to develop and evolve solutions at a faster
pace. - Railway planning systems and processes limit the availability and visibility of freight paths
(slots in the timetable which can accept a freight train) resulting in under-utilisation of
network capacity.
Our innovative freight planning solution (PathPlanner) will make the use of rail for freight as
accessible and easy to use as the road network. PathPlanner is specifically designed to overcome
the current operational challenges and blockers that make moving to rail prohibitive.
Proof-of-Concept Demonstration
In 2021, NR completed a £17m upgrade around Southampton to enable longer trains in/out of the docks. Completing April 2023, Solent Stevedores is investing c.£3m to strengthen their capability to receive and dispatch longer and more trains – from 9 to 16 per day.
However, NR’s business case did not include any understanding of capacity in/out of the port, so
Solent Stevedores is currently unsighted as to how, or if, they can find the additional paths.
There are significant gains to be made if they can; 7 extra trains equate to:
- £12.6m additional revenue p.a.
- A reduction of 55,000 HGVs.
- A reduction of carbon by 1,165 tonnes.
Our project will demonstrate a Proof-of-Concept solution at Southampton Docks that will facilitate
Solent Stevedores, and Eddie Stobart Logistics (ESL) – 2 off our project partners – to find additional
freight paths and transfer containers from HGVs to trains.
My Thoughts And Conclusions
As I programmed scheduling and resource allocation systems for forty years, I am probably one of the most experienced programmers at writing this type of system.
That experience suggests that their objectives are possible.
First Of A Kind 2022 Winners Announced
The title of this post, is the same as that of this news item from Innovate UK.
This paragraph explains the competition.
The Department for Transport and Innovate UK are delighted to announce the first set of winners for the First of Kind (FOAK) 2022 competition. Winners will receive funding to help develop novel technology which improves rail freight services and lowers carbon emissions from trains.
I shall cover some of the winning ideas in future posts, which I will link to this post.
10039629 – Decarbonising Auxiliary Load In Freight Today
10037240 – Levelling Up Freight
10038447 – Transforming High-Speed Rail Logistics
10039606 – “Freight Skate” A Self-Powered Freight Bogie And Platform
10039559 – A Rapidly Deployable Rail Stress Sensor For Next Generation Freight Monitoring
10037294 – EventGo – Intelligent Rail Service Demand Forecasting for Event-Based Travel
10037862 – NextGen Data-Driven Timetable Performance Optimisation Tool
10039201- Protection and Resilience for OLE using ComputerVision Techniques (PROLECT)
10038989 – FEIDS – FOAS Enabled Intruder Detection System
10038342 – Rail Flood Defender
10039258 – Optimal Prediction of Sand For Adhesion
10038790 – Unauthorised Cable Removal And Fault Triage
10036632 – Trains With Brains(R)
10038228 – SBRI: FOAK 2022 Optimising Railway Possessions
10037542 – Portable Track Geometry Measurement System
10038973 – State Of The Railway Compiler Data Solution (SORClite): Open Access Real-Time Signalling Data
10036245 – ECML Net Zero Traction Decarbonisation
10039100 – UBER – Ultra-High Power Battery For Low Emission Rail
10037562 – ZERRCI – Zero Emissions Repowering Of Railway Construction Infrastructure
10038683 – Axle Mounted Motor For Retrofit To DMU’s To Enable Zero Emissions In Stations
10038972 – Zero Emission Powering of Auxiliary Loads In Stations
10038627 – ERiCS – Emissions Reductions in Closed Stations
10037158 – 25kV Battery Train Charging Station Demonstration
Consortium To Develop Low-Cost Operations To Revive France’s Local Lines
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
This was the first paragraph.
Thales has joined forces with a group of companies and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regional Council to develop innovative digital signalling and operations with a view to cutting the cost of running trains on lightly-used rural lines.
When I first read this article, I immediately thought, that the French problem is similar to problems we have in the UK, and I’ve also seen in other countries in Europe like Germany and The Netherlands.
The French consortium are looking at these technologies.
- Platform-agnostic, autonomous train positioning and odometry without trackside infrastructure.
- Cyber-secured data transmission via public telecommunications networks.
- High-density digital terrain mapping.
- Formal methods of generating safety data.
- A tablet-based supervision and operations interface for drivers.
- Integrated surveillance of level crossings.
- Network surveillance using sensors mounted on rail vehicles.
Thales says that the technology ‘will be fully interoperable with the core network and promises to reduce investment and operating costs by more than 30%’. Apart from reviving rural railways, it will improve safety, ‘especially at level crossings’, the company said.
As someone, who was designing and installing automation on heavy machinery nearly sixty years ago, I feel the French are on the right track.
I have a few thoughts.
Could Drone And/Or Missile Guidance Technology Be Used?
It should be noted that Thales Air Defence are a company who manufacture several successful missiles including the NLAW. They are also a subsidiary pf Thales Group, who are leading the French rural rail consortium.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find, that Thales have access to loads of applicable technology.
Could Drivers Use A Tablet To Drive The Train?
I don’t see why not!
The Elizabeth Line has been designed to use auto-reverse to speed up operations at Paddington, which I wrote about in Crossrail Trains Will Have Auto-Reverse.
I suspect that the driver has a simple controller to monitor the reversing train and stop it in an emergency.
Integrated Surveillance Of Level Crossings
Whoever solves this tricky problem will do the railways of the world a big service.
Network Surveillance Using Sensors Mounted On Rail Vehicles
This is starting to happen all over the world.
Conclusion
I think that the results of this French study will be felt worldwide.
National Grid Installs LineVision Sensors To Expand The Capacity Of Existing Power Lines
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from National Grid.
These are four bullet points from the press release.
- LineVision’s Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) technology trialled for first time in Great Britain following successful deployment on National Grid’s electricity networks in the US.
- The sensors and data analytics platform will highlight spare capacity on overhead power lines allowing for the integration of more renewable power.
- Technology has the potential to unlock 0.6GW of additional capacity, enough to power more than 500,000 homes and save £1.4 million in network operating costs per year based on the results from the US networks.
- Combined with the construction of new infrastructure, the innovative technology forms part of National Grid’s work to upgrade and adapt the electricity network to meet increased demand and help deliver a net zero grid.
In some ways this seems like the sort of story, that could be filed under Too-Good-To-Be-True.
But as a Graduate Control Engineer, I’m willing to give National Grid and LineVision the benefit of the doubt.
- It appears to be technology proven in the United States.
- That experience should feed over, once the manuals are translated into the dual English-American form of English.
- I suspect that applying this technology to interconnectors could increase their capacity.
- I also think that as we add more storage, power sources or interconnectors to our electricity network, this will open up more savings.
- As the UK power network gets more complicated, the system should come into its own.
This is an excellent decision by National Grid.
East Kent Maternity Deaths: Babies Might Have Survived With Better Care
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
Up to 45 babies might have survived if they had received better care at East Kent NHS Hospitals Trust, a damning independent review has found.
As a father of three, who has experienced the death of both his wife and youngest son, I know that this is a tragedy for too many families.
But episodes like these seem to come along regularly in the NHS. We have had two cases, where nurses were murdering babies, the notorious Harold Shipman and several abuse cases in mental health.
Is the monitoring of the outcome of patient treatment up to scratch?
In the 1970s, I was asked to do some programming for Bob, who was the Chief Management Accountant of Lloyds Bank and before that he had been Chief Accountant of Vickers. Bob had very definite ideas about how to ascertain the performance of various divisions and departments in a company or organisation.
He taught me a lot as we applied his ideas to check out the performance of various branches in the Bank. A lot of his experience was incorporated into Artemis and other programs I have written.
One of the things we did with bank branches was to plot groups of branches in simple scatter diagrams, so that those with problems stood out.
Does the government do similar things with hospitals and GP surgeries?
I even went as far as to suggest that my software Daisy could be used to find rogue practitioners like Harold Shipman. I was thanked for my submission to the report, but was not told my ideas were mentioned in the report.
Conclusion
I believe that more babies might have survived in Kent, if a statistician had been comparing results between hospital trusts and actively looking for problems.
I suspect the reason, there is no serious analysis, is that there is a belief in the NHS, that no-one ever makes mistakes or is evil.
The Anonymous Widower 