Unlocking Innovation - Testing and Validation

05 December 2023, London

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RIA’s last Unlocking Innovation event for 2023 took place on Tuesday 5 December at RSSB’s Helicon headquarters in London as the two organisations jointly organised a workshop on Testing and Validation.

Milda Manomaityte, Innovation Director of the Railway Industry Association (RIA), welcomed some 100 delegates to the session and looked forward to an interesting discussion on the importance of good testing and validation practices and the need to have world-class facilities available to the industry.

Niall Fagan, Network Rail’s Head of Engineering, stressed the importance of allowing “engineers to engineer” when developing new products and processes. They needed to “think critically” and to make informed decisions, he said, including challenging standards when necessary and producing outcome-based specifications.

“Value for money is a big issue,” he told his audience, commenting on the pollical upheaval of the previous 18 months that had resulted in a £60 billion ‘black hole’ in public finances and a cost-of-living crisis.
However, Unlocking Innovation “is a keyway to make savings,” he stated.

“The railway is a complex system,” he said, adding that, while some people resisted change through innovation as it increases risk, it also is the only way to increase benefits in terms of performance and customer satisfaction.

When developing new products, the process is, first, to model the new system, followed by laboratory testing, real-life testing and finally operational testing on a live railway. This is where test facilities, such as Network Rail’s Rail Innovation & Development Centres (RIDC), the Black Country Innovative Manufacturing Organisation (BCIMO) at Dudley, the Global Centre of Railway Excellence (GCRE) in South Wales and Porterbrook’s facility at Long Marston in Warwickshire, all have an important part to play.

Although engineers may fully understand the engineering principles involved, testing evaluates the impact of making changes, so a structured approach is essential. Realistic goals need to be set and, in Network Rail’s case, these need to be aligned with the needs of the regional sponsor. With Network Rail now having a devolved structure, all five regions could well have different ideas and approaches, so all of these need to be considered.

An outside view
Bringing a different outlook to the topic, the day’s second speaker came from a different industrial sector. Duncan Kemp of the Ministry of Defence started by apologising that the illustrations on his slides were taken from the internet – “it was easier than getting the ones I have declassified,” he said.

New draft guidance
The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) is working on new guidance for testing and validation, to replace the good-practice guide first published in April 2014. This guide aimed to improve understanding of the process of product introduction and associated testing and was intended as the key reference document for all testing and validating activities.

RSSB is now working with a number of industry stakeholders, including RIA and the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE), to update the document to include novel techniques and tools, such as simulation and virtual validation, as well as the expanded UK capabilities with new railway testing centres either opened or in development.

Paul Plummer, Professor of Rail Strategy at BCRRE, explained some of the thinking behind the innovation process. “We all need to enable sustainable improvements in living standards across the whole planet,” he stated. “In order to do that, we need public transport and active travel. In order to achieve more of that, we need it to be more affordable, we need to improve the passenger experience. And in order to do that we need to be able to innovate with confidence and do it well. And in order to do that, we need to be able to test and validate things much more effectively.”

BCRRE is a member of UKRRIN – the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network – a collaboration between a number of universities and industry that was launched in 2018. UKRRIN has a number of centres of excellence, for digitalisation, rolling stock, infrastructure and testing, and these work on the five stages of product development, from Concept, through Research, Development and Innovation to Impact.

As discussed, BCRRE and UKRRIN are working with RSSB to develop new guidance on validation and testing in the UK. Luisa Moisio, RSSB’s Director of Research, explained that this guidance needed updating to answer the question “What does testing and validation look like in an increasingly digital railway? ” The guidance needs to navigate the present, shape the future and take account of advances in testing capabilities, she said.
New draft guidance, issued at the end of November, looks at why to test, how to test (rail systems and stakeholders), how to test (approaches and technologies) and where to test.

To help shape the next draft, due in Spring 2024, delegates were asked to take a working coffee break during which they could visit four presentations on the various aspects of the guidance and give their comments and opinions.

Test facilities
Following the working break, representatives of several UK testing facilities were asked to outline their offerings and capabilities to delegates.

Satnam Thiara, business development manager for Network Rail’s RIDC centres, was unable to attend the session due to the train drivers’ overtime ban. If he had been present, he would have described the facilities at RIDC Melton (the former Old Dalby test track) and RIDC Tuxford (previously the freight line to High Marnham power station, now closed).
 
RIDC Melton in Leicestershire has a 13-mile high-speed test track up to 125mph and a four-mile low-speed test track up to 60mph. Overhead electrification on the longer track is complemented by both third and fourth-rail DC electrification on the shorter one. The facility has been designed to support high and low speed testing of rolling stock, advanced signalling, infrastructure and equipment, telecommunications systems, new and modified technology trials, and enabling verification and validation activities.

Nottinghamshire’s RIDC Tuxford facility is suited to testing and validation of rolling stock, large and small plant, on-track machines, biodiversity trials, technology trials, filming, and delivery of operator training and competence assessments. It boasts a 10.5-mile test track, three miles of which is double track. Speeds of up to 75mph are permitted.

Neil Fulton, Chief Executive Officer of BCIMO, described the facilities at the Very Light Rail (VLR) National Innovation Centre. Established in 2020, he stressed that the centre was not just about testing VLR assets but was a national rail research facility. While the 15-metre radius test loop was only usable by VLR vehicles, the 1.3-mile test track, including a 950-yard tunnel with W12 clearance, can be used for testing and validating heavy-rail vehicles. 

Andy Doherty described the latest iteration of the GCRE facility in South Wales that is currently under construction. An outer oval, approximately 4.3 miles long and rated at 110mph, will be used for rolling stock testing while a slightly shorter inner loop is designed to test infrastructure, with a ‘standard’ heavy freight train running around the oval to subject track and structures to a known load cycle.

Faults can even be introduced to the infrastructure to see how both they and the trains react. In these cases, trains will be driverless and the ‘faults’ confined to a segregated part of the track where, even if a catastrophic failure were to occur, the only damage would be to that section of the loop and the rolling stock involved.

Rapid testing and approvals are the name of the game, according to Andy, and products and systems can be tested before they obtain type approval as the facility will be privately run and therefore subject only to its own health and safety regulation.

Timothy Mangozza, Rail Innovation Lead for PA Consulting, explained that his company employed 4,000 people and acted as management consultants, involved in digital engineering and technology development, which he described as ‘our best-kept secret’. PA’s Global Innovation and Technology Centre can take an idea, turn it into a viable and functional product and end up with a fully validated product ready to enter service.

Porterbrook now owns the Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre in Warwickshire. Chief Operating Officer Ben Ackroyd explained that this is used for warm-storage of off-lease trains, as a training facility for British Transport Police, and has the ability to run trains continuously on a low-speed oval for both vehicle and infrastructure testing.

A panel session with all of the test-facility representatives followed. Asked “What are we missing?”, the answers given were more infrastructure testing (though this will come as GCRE is completed) and making sure the market is aware of the facilities available.

That session concluded the RIA/RSSB-organised workshop. Milda Manomaityte thanked both speakers and delegates for attending, and said that the 2024 Unlocking Innovation programme, which will “look different”, will be announced by the end of December.