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A University of Nottingham research programme on rail human factors, in collaboration with Network Rail, has delivered significant impact to practitioners and professional services within the industry. New tools for workload management and efficiency are now routinely used as part of Network Rail's ergonomics toolkit and are supporting the fulfilment of the company's National Operating Strategy. Risk analysis tools have also contributed to Network Rail's programme providing enhanced asset information.
These tools have also been taken up by international train operators in Australia and the Netherlands.
This case study highlights the research carried out by Plymouth researchers in developing a new product in coded railway signalling, the EBI Track 400. Through this patented product, Bombardier Transportation UK Ltd has become the world leader in coded track systems, currently making profits in excess of $6 Million per annum through worldwide sales. The innovative coding algorithms and enhanced system performance has improved railway reliability, eliminated `false positive' danger alerts, and achieved savings for train operators while improving the travelling experience. It has also secured existing jobs and increased investment at their Plymouth site.
The School of Engineering at MMU has longstanding research into many aspects of railway engineering. This commenced in 1998 under the leadership of Professor Simon Iwnicki, who carried out research into the interaction between railway vehicles and the track. The understanding of the dynamics of the wheel rail contact that has resulted from this work has been developed into a number of tools and techniques that are being used on a daily basis by the rail industry both to design new railway systems and to predict the deterioration of railway wheels and rails. This allows railway engineers to predict and control roughness growth on rails and to optimise wheel profiles and maintenance intervals on wheel and track.
This work is now helping the railway industry internationally to realise both economic and environmental impacts as track maintenance costs are reduced, safety levels are enhanced and passengers continue to switch from road to rail in increasing numbers. This is evidenced by the award of new research contracts and industry funding and by direct input into industry standards.
Research in the Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) at City University London has made significant advances in ways to assess the safety and reliability of safety-critical, fault-tolerant software-based systems. This work supports quantitative safety cases and has influenced practice and regulation in UK and international industries. [text removed for publication] The work has had significant benefit for regulators and licensees of UK nuclear plant, has been recognised in the US nuclear industry and is additionally of benefit to the general public, in ensuring not only that reasoning about the safety of nuclear plant is rigorous and valid, but also that it is seen to be so in order that safety claims are widely and justifiably believed.
The Railway Systems Group develops state-of-the-art condition monitoring and instrumentation systems that identify system faults before they degrade into failures that cause passenger disruption. The key impacts of the Railway Systems Group lie in the following areas:
Examples of direct quantifiable impact are a reduction of over 60,000 minutes in train delays over the last one year period through monitoring of 5,600 railway point machines (the cost to Network Rail of delays is between £20/min to £160/min). Also, the deployment of an award winning conductor shoe monitoring system, which has resulted in an estimated savings of 12,150 minutes. Expert advice and practical prototypes have been through active contracts from railway companies totalling £4.2M. This includes an influence in the £7 billion successful order from the Department for Transport to Hitachi for new trains, energy saving strategies reported by the Office of the Rail Regulator and evidence to the Transport Select Committee on winter operations. These have been achieved by working extensively with the British and international railway industries in the area of condition monitoring and bespoke instrumentation systems that support an improvement in the dependability of rail travel.
A Portsmouth team has helped revolutionise how flight data from aircraft flight recorders is being analysed. This has improved the corporate performance of a leading UK company in a globally competitive market by helping it expand its business in the UK and to subsequently compete in the dynamic North American market. Historically, data was manually evaluated on a flight by flight basis. Research by the Portsmouth team means such data can now be analysed automatically by artificial intelligence (AI), saving significant man-hours, and allowing the company to diversify domestically into a related market and to expand internationally. The techniques developed were subsequently applied in a new market, enabling the new corporate partner to realise savings estimated at £100,000 p.a.
Research at the Transport Safety Research Centre (TSRC) at Loughborough University has led to the development of a new road safety data and knowledge base called the European Road Safety Observatory (ERSO). The European Commission has confirmed in a reference that it has become a standard tool for EU and national level safety policy development and has been praised by the European Parliament. Since being established in 2006 it has been emulated at national level by many EU Member States including the UK, Spain, Czech Republic, Netherlands and France. The ERSO website now receives over 5000 hits each month from road safety policy-makers across the EU. The research, which was led by TSRC researchers, was conducted between 2004 and 2012 and in 2013 was awarded the HRH Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for its impact on road safety.
Research conducted by the Accident Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Nottingham since 1988 has influenced decision-making processes for government road safety executives across the globe. A series of studies commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT), in addition to independent research, fed into research policy-making documentation, helping to frame national and international government policy on road safety in the UK, Europe, America, and Australasia. The work has informed publicity materials for professionals and the public with a particular focus on collisions involving young drivers, motorcycle safety, work-related traffic collisions and distractibility due to roadside advertising.
Loughborough University's Construction Accident Causality (ConCA) framework has:
The European Air Traffic Management system currently handles around 26,000 flights daily, with ultimate responsibility for the lives of almost 800 million passengers and crew every year. Professor Chris Johnson's research has directly influenced policy, legislation and regulation across Europe's air traffic control, including the current guidelines on software development in Air Traffic Management, which were incorporated into European law in 2008. He has led the way in harmonising computer infrastructure standards across different agencies throughout the EU, building defences against cyber-attacks and playing a vital role in improving passenger safety.