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Day Two at Conference

After a very full first day, which culminated in a networking drinks, dinner, quiz and spoof caino first day, delegates at RIA’s Innovation Conference were eagerly anticipating the start of day two. Here's all that happened, including our closing keynote, GBRTT Lead Anit Chandarana - read on...

New publications

RIA launch Data & Digital paper. RIA Innovation Director Milda Manomaityte welcomed delegates back for the second day and briefly recapped Day 1. She announced that the DfT had released its Digital Transport Strategy the day before, which sets out how DfT will work with the transport sector to improve the discoverability, accessibility and quality of transport data to support innovation.

The timing of this coincided with RIA launching its own report, ‘Data and Digital Technologies in Rail’, which outlines the challenges and opportunities facing the rail industry on data and digital technologies. Following a consultation of RIA members, the report includes six key ‘asks’ of Government, policy makers and clients, which would enable, expedite and ensure the success of the UK railway’s digital transition over the next 10 years: the ‘Digital Decade’.

The view from Westminster

Following Rail & HS2 Minister Huw Merriman MP yesterday, today it was the turn of Labour’s Shadow Minister for Science, Research & Innovation Chi Onwurah MP to address delegates by video link.

She said how pleased she was that RIA has organised a conference looking at railway innovation, and reminded delegates that the first major innovation was the introduction of the commercial, passenger-carrying railway by George Stephenson, who came from the same area as her constituency in Newcastle upon Tyne.

“I am really enthusiastic for the future of our railway network,” she said, adding that she believes that having the railway under government control will allow new measures to meet customer needs to be introduced more quickly.

On decarbonisation, the Shadow Minister commented that a cost-effective electrification programme is urgently needed to unlock carbon savings and encourage modal shift from road to rail.

Major innovation opportunities

A team of speakers from the East West Railway Company - Will Reddaway, Head of Innovation; Caroline Eglinton, Head of Inclusion; Andy Bagguley, Head of Systems and Martin Phillips, Head of Customer Strategy, combined to inform delegates of their collective approach to innovation.

Services from Oxford to Milton Keynes are due to start late 2024/early 2025 using cascaded Class 196 trains. The full railway, from Oxford to Cambridge, is looking likely to be open by the end of the decade.

Michael Davies, Insight and Innovation Manager at Transport for Wales, introduced delegates to Llwybr Newydd, the New Path that is TfW’s transport strategy and which guides the Welsh transport innovation strategy. Passenger demands have changed and the Innovation Steering Group is looking to meet those challenges.

TfW runs TfWLAB, and Michael launched its 2023 challenge and opportunity statements at RIA’s Innovation Conference, introducing this year’s key topics of Customer Experience, Modal Shift and the Future of Transport. RIA members and conference delegates were invited to get involved.

The importance of data

Three more keynotes were presented after the networking break. Emma Dickson and Paul Watson from Arcadis were first up, speaking about ‘Assured and Data-led’.

Senior Director Paul Watson spoke about Assured and Data-led Delivery, describing how he sometimes got "that sinking feeling” when discovering that a project isn’t going as well as reports suggest. Using data correctly can overcome this, but the challenge is how to do so when “96% of all data goes unused in the engineering and construction industry”.

Design & Engineering Service Lead Emma Dickson took over to discuss Assured and Data-led Design and Engineering, and how it can be used to detect potential clashes in design early. Model-based systems engineering has been around for a long time but is still not used properly or well enough, she said.

Marie Banks, Head of Transformation and Digitalisation at DB Cargo, gave a freight operator’s view on innovation. She said that a good understanding of legacy assets is essential – they have a lot of them – but they also need to look forward. Digital access, intelligent assets and data-driven decision making all drive innovation and efficiency in the business.

Prof Andy Doherty, Chief Technology Officer at Wales’ Global Centre Rail Excellence, gave delegates a quick update on the project to build Wales’, and the UK’s first dedicated test track that will allow continuous running for trains on the outer loop and infrastructure testing on the shorter one.

“We have to change how we are doing things”, he said. “The world is changing around us.”

Spotlights

Eight more exhibitors 'spotlighted' their latest offerings with short presentations on their stands after lunch. The exhibitors were:

eviFile
Telent
Route Reports
Thales
Park Signalling
Comms Design
Unipart Rail
Network Rail Spotlight

Once again, invited representatives of several companies were introducing their products and services to a panel of train operator procurement executives while those spotlights were taking place.

Digital all the way

The afternoon session commenced with a talk from Andrew Hawthorn, Chief Solution Architect for High Integrity Systems at CapGemini, who told delegates the industry has to embrace change or fail. It has changed constantly in the past, now it needs to be more digital in its products, services, organisation and business.

The industry needs to understand how digitalisation will affect operations, customers, the environment and the industry itself.

Martijn Gilbert, who is Managing Director of open-access train operator Lumo, introduced his new train service between Edinburgh and London that commenced on 25 October 2021. Now running 10 services a day, its two main features are that it is 100% electric – there are no diesel engines in the fleet – and that his company offers “a fair proposition”.

The service is ‘good standard’ class only, and fares average around £37 from London to Edinburgh. All booking and ticketing is online and digital and Lumo has fully embraced new technology.

Two more TechTalks followed. Geoffrey McCormick, Strategic Design Lead at the Connected Places Catapult, shared a case study of his work with Craig Williams of the Aluminium Lighting Company of South Wales. Sensors attached to the lighting columns now monitor their structural integrity, advising when they need repair or replacement. Craig approached Network Rail Wales & Western with his development and found them very helpful in getting his new product into service.

Jarek Rosinksi, Founder of Transmission Dynamics, explained how he uses a combination of video and accelerometers to monitor pantographs and overhead wiring in real time. If any problem occurs and is detected by the accelerometers, then the infrastructure controller is shown video of the event so decisions can be made on what needs to be repaired and how urgently.

All of the equipment is manufactured in-house and the system uses artificial intelligence to learn from each incident.

Closing remarks

Anit Chandarana, Lead Director at the Great British Railways Transition Team, gave the final presentation of the conference. He referred back to his presentation at RIA’s Annual Conference last November, when he said that rail is too siloed, too slow and too proscriptive.

The last 12 months have been challenging politically, but Secretary of State Mark Harper and Rail & HS2 Minister Huw Merriman, who addressed the conference on the first day, have brought stability. They are pushing hard for rail reform to go ahead with major involvement from the private sector.

GBR intends to be a guiding mind, but not a centralised, controlling one. However he mentioned two areas that, in his opinion, need addressing. Timetabling is an important topic, yet it is still largely carried out using traditional methods and there is no one in overall charge.

Referring to innovation, he said that the railway was poor at whole-system thinking, and it was frustrating to try to put new technology into an industry that is so fragmented. Once again, no one is accountable for making things happen at a whole-industry level.

Finally, RIA Chairman David Tonkin gave a summary of the conference’s proceedings. He called the conference “very good with splendid presentations” and said he had heard some brilliant ideas and new ways of working.

“Innovation is not a gamble,” he added. “This is a great industry and rail is massively well funded.” Rail provides a huge market penetration opportunity, but the industry itself is expensive and must push for cost reductions and a lower cost base.

Thank you from RIA

Team RIA would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who joined us in Nottingham. We had a fantastic time hosting, and we hope you enjoyed attending. We look forward to seeing you and other RIA members next year in Wales!