Sensor technology to monitor passenger comfort in real time, a new toolkit to allow longer trains to stop at shorter platforms without costly upgrade works, and work to decarbonise rail freight are among some of the innovative research projects and findings to be showcased in the most recent quarterly update from RSSB.
Projects detailed are broken down into three phases: those which are ‘in action’, projects which are ‘ready to use’ but yet to be regularly implemented, and those which are ‘in progress’ with ongoing development.
Luisa Moisio, R&D Programme Director at RSSB, wrote: “As is often the case, this quarterly update brings exciting news on the introduction of new solutions that draw on the latest technologies.
“Incremental innovation is also important. Doing more and better by adapting industry assets and processes plays a big role in improving the safety, experience, and value for money that we offer to rail customers.
“Our research often provides the evidence base for updating railway standards, and this is an important way we put our findings into action for the benefit of the industry.
“In this issue we report new research on blanket speed restrictions, freight decarbonisation, and technical solutions to prevent over-speeding. All of these have the potential to produce important results that will feed into the standards, guidance, and tools that RSSB provides to industry, which make the latest findings easy to apply.”
In the example of the sensor technology, RSSB has been working with Grand Central and Pure Chaos, co-funding a trial of an inexpensive, battery-powered Internet of Things (IoT) sensor technology through its grant scheme.
These sensors monitor saloon air temperature, pressure and humidity, using the collected data to train machine learning algorithms to predict heating, ventilation and air conditioning outages, which can then be used to inform pre-emptive maintenance planning and reduce the likelihood of disruption from trains being taken out of service.
For those interested in getting involved and learning more about how new technologies can improve the rail industry and its capabilities, RSSB have organised a number of outreach opportunities.
Read the full update below:
