Summary of the impact

Reductions in railway infrastructure and operating costs, through efficiency gains, deliver benefits to taxpayers (via lower subsidies) and/or passengers (via lower fares). Research undertaken by the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) at the University of Leeds from 2005 onwards revealed a 37% efficiency gap in relation to rail infrastructure costs and operations, relative to international best practice. The key impact of this research was to inform the Office of Rail Regulation's (ORR) setting, in 2008, of annual efficiency targets for Network Rail for the subsequent five-year period, resulting in a reduction in costs from £18.2bn to £15.8bn over the five year regulatory `control period' starting 2009/10. A secondary impact of the ITS Leeds research was to provide key benchmarking and evidence in more recent ORR efficiency assessments (2010) and Sir Roy McNulty's long-term policy-setting Rail Value for Money (VfM) study (2011). Extending the reach of these research impacts, the water and sewerage regulator OFWAT has, from 2013, adopted the ITS Leeds approach for its latest periodic review.

Summary of the impact

The UK Rail Industry has set itself a target of increasing capacity by a factor of two within 30 years for both passengers and freight. A central problem is to increase the capacity and performance of the (existing) rail network. Signalling systems and their safety is a major consideration. It is towards this long-term goal that we direct our research activity on signalling. Our research impacts both current practices and strategic planning within the Railway Industry:

• Current practices: Our research has led to (i) the adoption of formal verification techniques at Invensys Rail, a multi-national technology leader, as well as (ii) changes in the operation and organisation of the company - involving personnel, structures and forward thinking - that successfully address commercial challenges faced by the company.
• Strategic planning: The adoption of the European Train Management System (ETMS) - a proposed replacement for track-side signalling - is aimed at reducing maintenance costs, enhancing performance and improving safety. But its adoption presents a major challenge for the UK. In addressing this, our research produces data and thinking in support of change, which we deliver through various working groups and initiatives that are developing national policy for the development of the UK railway. By releasing UK railways from the strictures of track-side signalling, ETMS represents the step-change transformation necessary for meeting the industry's ambitious 30-year target.

Summary of the impact

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.

Summary of the impact

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:

• Detection and diagnosis of faults in railway assets (e.g. point machines, track circuits, vehicle components);
• Collection and analysis of track data from in-service railway vehicles (e.g. conductor shoe monitoring, track geometry, non-destructive testing);
• Energy monitoring to quantify loses in the railway power system;
• Assessing the effectiveness of winter weather mitigation solutions.

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.

Summary of the impact

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.