Return to Archive -by date - by topic.
Can Network Rail and the Office of Rail Regulation cut the Gordian knot of signalling cost and technology.
In July 2004 the bulk of this column was given over to a detailed analysis of how main line signalling policy had got into such a mess. There was much positive feedback and the Institution of Railway Signal engineers reproduced the article in its monthly international magazine.
Quite simply, in 10 short years we have got to the situation where a modern European railway claims that it cannot afford to renew, let alone upgrade, its signalling using established British kit being installed economically on railways in Europe and overseas.
So entangled has the briar patch become, that not even Tom Winsor 's Interim Review of Track Access charges could come to grips with how much Network Rail should spend on signal renewal over the next five years. Instead he authorised existing expenditure for the first two years of the new Control Period (CP3), which started on 1 April 2004 , pending a mini Interim Review of signalling to decide longer term expenditure.
In November, the Office of Rail Regulation, began consultation on this signalling review. ORR Chairman Chris Bolt got his retaliation in first by highlighting the likely difficulty in reconciling the need to provide long term certainty for manufacturers and contractors with the need to respond to changing requirements and technical innovation.
According to Mr Bolt, while it is right that Network Rail ‘should only proceed with schemes where it is satisfied that costs are appropriate', longer term certainly would provide a ‘firmer basis' for both suppliers and Network Rail. But ORR is looking for ‘early certainty' on schemes being planned for the rest of CP3, which ends on 31 March 2009 . This, at least, is good news for the suppliers still toughing out the nuclear winter created by Railtrack's implosion.
How these aims are to be achieved is the meat of the consultation document. A key issue is the period covered by the review: should it be restricted to CP3 or, as ORR prefers, cover CP4 as well, out to 2014?
ORR favours a settlement up the end of CP4, to provide certainly and simplify planning. In this case, the next Periodic Review should reaffirm long term expenditure identified in the signalling review ‘subject only to modifications arising from significant changes in assumptions or the availability of better information'.
This is a tough decision. As you all know, I suspect the Government will seek to cut back rail spending drastically in the Periodic Review for CP4. If this happens, the longer term signalling expenditure plans could be ephemeral.
An even knottier issue on which the consultation document seeks views is the extent to which ERTMS will become ‘a viable economic signalling option' during the two Control Periods are being sought. I have a separate rant on this later.
ORR is setting up a Signalling Development Group (SDG) to advise Network Rail on issues to be addressed in the Review. It will be responsible for ensuring that Network Rail's long term signalling plan is robust ‘in terms of work bank volumes, deliverability and efficient implementation'.
SDG will also critically review proposals put forward and challenge ‘where appropriate'. This will need real world signalling experience.
There will also be a high level Signalling Review Steering Group (SRGS). Membership of both Groups is drawn from Network Rail, ORR, SRA and HMRI.
And one concern is the lack of hands-on signal engineering experience on these Groups. An exception is Hedley Calderbank of ORR who chairs the SRSG, Under BR Hedley was Signal Engineer Scottish Region and then Regional S&T Engineer for Regional Railways North East.
I would like to see more expertise in the Groups, but the current view is that industry and the signalling profession will be brought into the loop via consultation. The trouble is that lay people tend to be easily seduced by whizzo new signalling technology (this column passim ad nauseam)
ORR sees SRSG's role as taking an overview of the ‘detailed and complex issues' being considered by SDG. This will involve making some fundamental decisions based on inadequate technical information and I am not sure that the Group members have the necessary engineering pragmatism. As ORR Chairman Chris Bolt says of Track Access Charges, you can get it precisely wrong or approximately right. Too much recent signalling policy has been precisely wrong
Two separate phases are proposed for the Review., In phase one, Network Rail will produce the technical and operational policies which will form the basis of the review, together with costed options for a long-term national signalling strategy.
SDG will advise Network Rail and co-ordinate the work ‘to ensure that the outputs are viable, sensible, supported by evidence and likely to command wide support'. ORR will assess the validity of Network Rail's assumptions and outputs independently.
In phase two, ORR will review the options and determine the appropriate efficient level of funding for Network Rail. This will include specifying the expected outputs, such as capability, condition and safety.
Welcome news for the manufacturers and contractors is that Network Rail has proposed an immediate review of the signalling workbank up to the end of CP3 in 2009 so that it can make early commitments to suppliers. This will be the subject of a discrete ‘medium term Signalling Review' within Phase 1.
It will involve back-checking the provisional funding for signalling for the final three years of CP3, proposed to Tom Winsor 's Interim Review, to see whether it will still deliver the required volume of renewals. These conclusions are expected in October 2005. But, hoorah, until then, Network Rail can commit to signalling work on the basis of the provisional funding for signalling in CP3.
These immediate actions are crucial, because Network Rail has suggested that the long term review out to 2014 should combine the emerging route utilisation strategies (RUS) with the emerging national signalling strategy. A key benefit of linking the Signalling Review to RUS, says ORR, is that it would simplify the ERTMS problem.
Under the Interoperability Regulations, ERTMS will be mandated for routes being upgraded. Knowing which routes, if any, are to be upgraded, would help determine the ERTMS application timescale.
However, it will be March 2006 before all the route utilisation strategies/output specifications will be sufficiently advanced to be used in the Review. This would delay publication the long term Review by six months to October 2006. Hence the importance of the ‘medium term' initiative to keep factories turning over.
Signalling Review timetable
Network Rail medium term (to 2009) funding submission to ORR April 2005
ORR medium term funding draft determination July 2005
ORR medium term funding final determination 2006-2009
October 2005
Network Rail long term (to 2014) funding submission to ORR February 2006
Implementation of medium term determination April 2006
ORR long term funding draft determination July 2006
ORR long term funding final determination 2009-2014
October 2006
A decade of deferment in signalling renewals has created a bow wave of overdue work to be cleared before a steady state programme can be re-established. This complicates the Review.
Simply starting a renewals programme on the basis of the Signalling Infrastructure Condition Assessment (SICA) data base, supplemented by on-site inspection, would create an unsustainable peak demand, in terms of manufacturing, installation and commissioning resources. Then there would be an equally unmanageable trough. Both would then be repeated 30-odd years down the line.
Network Rail has developed several renewal scenarios to get round this problem. The basic approach smooths the theoretical renewal dates generated by SICA using a combination of life extension and accelerated renewals. For the purpose of the review this is termed ‘condition led, delivery optimised, whole life asset costs optimised'.
What it aims to achieve are consistent and achievable renewals volumes at an efficient cost generated by scheduling work on a line of route or area basis. Some kit on a route might have to be renewed prematurely. Levels of renewals would be matched to the capacity of the supply chain and also aligned with the RUS/output specifications for which Network Rail will be responsible under the new structure of the railways.
A second scenario, termed ‘condition led, delivery optimised, whole life system costs optimised', would also take into account the opportunities to reduce whole life costs through rationalisation and consolidation. In other words, would early renewal with new systems lead to reductions in operating and whole-life maintenance costs. Any extra cost would be offset by the long term savings.
Under Scenario 3 , ‘Condition led ERTMS optimised', the workbank is modified to bring the renewal of interlockings in line with the implementation of ERTMS. Some renewals could be deferred until they could incorporate ERTMS functionality and technology.
This scenario suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of ETCS technology because the latest computer based interlockings from Alstom and Westinghouse (Smartlock and Westlock respectively) are both ERTMS-ready. As modern European Computer Based Interlockings (CBI) they are designed for the two way communication with a Radio Block Centre (RBC) which is the key technology of ETCS.
Of more immediate importance they can be loaded with SSI data, connected to standard SSI communications modules and run the points and signals. Even better, a Smartlock or a Westlock interlocking with do the work of four SSI modules, so renewals should be cheaper.
In fact, as reported here, we could have had a Westlock interlocking running on test at Leamington Spa last year. Alstom is a bit behind Westinghouse, but Smartlock should be ready for service testing later this year.
So from 2006 we could be installing 21 st Century CBIs which are both compatible with UK signaling principles today and ERTMS ready for whenever. A third option is Westrace, which also incorporates the necessary two-way communications capability which has been on the ERTMS pilot line in Spain . WestRace is already in service with NR in Scotland .
As the consultation document points out, renewals on future ERTMS routes would be simpler, since the SRA's preferred ETCS Level 2 provides cab signalling, getting rid of much lineside clutter. The real obstacle to ERTMS is the cost of fitting all the trains using the route.
Finally Network Rail has proposed a scenario in which the levels of signalling expenditure allowed for CP3 would be maintained throughout CP4. This, says ORR, would lose the optimisation opportunities in the other scenarios and possibly lack the ability to exploit technical developments.
By chance, as I was finishing this item, it emerged that the lack of work from Network Rail has resulted in Atkins Rail having to close its Crewe signalling design office, directly affected 20 people, with a further reduction of 25 people in its other signalling design offices. Let us hope that ORR has the wit and the will to accelerate the medium term review within the review.
Return to Archive -by date - by topic.