01.02.17
Challenges and opportunities for big data in the Digital Railway
Source: RTM Dec/Jan 17
Dr John Easton and Dr Shruti Kohli from the University of Birmingham write for RTM about the role big data can play in transforming the country’s railways.
Over the last few years there has been a great deal of discussion within the industry around the shape the railways will take in the decades to come. Much of the debate has focused on the arrival of new, digital technologies that will replace the systems the industry has relied on until now, and what the impact of those changes might be in terms of passenger experience, operation of the network, safety and security, and business processes.
At first glance, it is easy to assume that the digitalisation of the railway is all about train control. However, the challenge that new digitally-enabled infrastructure and systems present to the railway industry is about far more than in-cab signals. It’s about creating a virtually-connected ‘system of railway systems’, where the timely provision and analysis of data on the state of the network enables smoother running, increased flexibility, and, critically, greater use of the physical capacity available.
Nowhere is the early application of these principles more obvious than in the research arena, where the EU-funded Shift2Rail lighthouse projects In2Rail and IT2Rail are blazing new trails in the development of next generation Traffic Management Systems and Passenger Information Systems respectively. These new systems share a common theme, drawing together information from around the industry, and delivering it to the right people, in the right place, at the right time to support effective decision-making. Work of this calibre does not take place in isolation, and both projects are building on a huge body of previous work from within the industry and in the research sector, including projects such as AUTOMAIN, ON-TIME, and Capacity4Rail.
Big data analytics and cyber security
Developing a deeper understanding of the asset base is obviously a key win for digital technologies, and while condition monitoring may grab the lion’s share of the headlines, the potential for improvements in defect reporting and sharing of best maintenance practice are both easy wins in this area. By combining large volumes of data from similar fleets across the network, for example, big data analytics approaches will enable the industry to identify patterns that represent best practice in operation and maintenance for those vehicles and, perhaps more importantly, show how day-to-day activities can be improved on poorly-performing routes.
Data collection is also evolving, with IoT technologies offering exciting new possibilities for very low-cost and short-term sensor installations. The potential application of big data techniques within the industry will not be limited to the physical assets it owns and operates. Understanding the movements of passengers around station buildings, for instance, will become increasingly important as headways decrease and station dwell times become more critical. The automatic analysis of footage from station CCTV systems will be an important additional tool in this area, and will be able to supplement existing approaches, such as passenger surveys, by providing continuous footfall figures across the network.
Cyber security game changer
The digitalisation of the railway is a game changer for cyber security. If the industry is to achieve the potentially huge business benefits that could arise from greater interconnectivity between systems, then we need to change the way we think about security, and in particular we must address the soon-to-be-flawed assumption that railway ICT is protected because it runs on closed networks.
New systems will need to be secure by design, the workforce will need to receive training in security best practice, and as an industry we will need robust procedures in place to ensure that when – not if – problems arise the network can continue to run safely and with a minimum of disruption.
A key component of the successful adoption of the new systems will lie in the adaptation of business processes to the new way of working, and particularly supporting the exchange and integration of data owned by the various stakeholders across the industry. Fortunately, there is already some great work going on in this area in projects such as the RSSB’s T1010 project on enabling the use of cross-industry remote condition monitoring. Business processes will also need to evolve to accommodate rail’s role in the wider, multimodal transport system, where the challenge will be to adapt technologies such as electronic ticketing that have been shown to work well in closed systems, such as those run by Transport for London, to the national system.
The scale of the changes that digital technologies will bring to the industry mean that this is an exciting time to be working in rail, and the topics discussed here are just the tip of the iceberg. As a final thought, it’s important to remember that if digitalisation is going to succeed, then we need to make sure that the change is led by the passengers and staff, and while the possibilities are almost endless, we need to focus on meeting the needs of the industry, and not the needs of the technology.
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