Fast track future
RSSB’s NEIL WEBSTER tells PAUL STEPHEN why the RSSB’s Innovation Programme isn’t just blue sky thinking
UKRRIN’s lead university partner The Birmingham Centre for Rail Research and Education.
When the Rail Technical Strategy (RTS) was first published in December 2012, it was accompanied by a bold call to action.
By outlining a vision for the future railway over the next 30 years, it tasked industry and the supply chain with finding the innovative technical solutions needed to address the core challenges that they collectively face.
These challenges are to increase capacity and improve the customer experience, while at the same time reducing both costs and carbon emissions so that the railway’s continued business base can be secured for its current and future customers.
To deliver the aims of the RTS, a Capability Delivery Plan (CDP) was subsequently drawn up to focus industry-wide efforts, expertise and investment, and to provide a framework for research and development activities to closely align with
In order to do this, the CDP identifies 12 key capabilities that are needed to achieve the RTS vision, for example creating more space on trains, obtaining more value from data, running trains closer together and lowering the cost of railway solutions.
Leading the CDP’s delivery is the Technical Strategy Leadership Group (TSLG) which is facilitated by RSSB, and comprises the Rail Delivery Group, Network Rail , government and the rail supply chain.
The CDP is also supported by a suite of resources, tools and funding opportunities aimed at encouraging stakeholders to engage with the strategy, and help stimulate the development and deployment of new technologies.
A significant amount of this support is provided by the RSSB’s Innovation Programme, which is delivered by RSSB in collaboration with Network Rail and the Department for Transport.
Overseen by RSSB Innovation Programme Director Neil Webster and a team of ten members of staff along with more than 300 technical experts from the rail sector and non-rail industries, the programme allocates funding to innovative technology proposals made by industry entering a range of competitions.
The focus of each competition varies widely from vehicle-based innovation and technical improvement through to remote conditionmonitoring and heritage and community rail.
Webster’s directorate currently supports 240 live projects as a result of these competitions. Each of them represents a high-risk project for a commercial organisation to bear the full cost of development on its own, but which has been offset by RSSB because of the significant potential benefit they have been
The projects we are involved in are proof that we’re providing solutions to problems that the rail industry is facing right now. Neil Webster, Innovation Programme Director, RSSB
judged to offer UK rail.
Webster explains: “The Innovation Programme covers everything from rolling stock through to infrastructure, and the projects we are involved in are proof that we’re providing solutions to problems that the rail industry is facing right now.
“This isn’t just high-level theoretical work and blue sky thinking, but ultimately demonstrates how we can practically work with industry to reduce costs, increase profitability and improve service to rail customers.”
Webster reveals that one such live project has the potential to save the industry up to £1.8 billion across the next 40 years, earning it financial support from RSSB under its Railway Operator Challenge in 2014.
Vortex Exhaust Technology systems had already proved successful in saving fuel and lowering diesel emissions in road vehicles and marine vessels by improving the efficiency of their engines and was deemed a prime candidate for the rail sector.
RSSB’s innovation team, therefore, partnered with the company and Northern Rail (now Arriva Northern) to test the product on a Class 156 diesel multiple unit over a six-month period. The results were a 10%-20% fuel saving, which equates to a network-wide saving of £1.8bn over the 40-year average lifetime of a train when based on the entire UK DMU fleet’s current fuel consumption of approximately 736 million litres per year.
The most recent funding competitions run by RSSB include its Rail Accessibility Competition which closed for entries on November 30 2017 and its TOC’17 competition for train operators that closed in May.
As this issue of RAIL went to press the entries for both competitions had been judged by independent review panels, although no winners had yet been announced.
Now in its fifth year of running, Webster tells RAIL that TOC’17 attracted 19 submissions since opening for entries on November 15 2017.
Successful projects from previous years include Arriva’s MyJrny App that provides passengers with real-time journey information, Arriva’s Orinoco information app that enables passengers and staff to locate empty seats on an approaching train, and FirstGroup’s Mantra high-speed mobile technology system that is designed to improve connectivity between trains and the outside world by using extremely high frequency (‘mmWave’) wireless data connections between trackside equipment and the train.
Webster says that particular efforts are made to encourage small technology providers and non-rail suppliers to participate, by helping them secure the necessary contacts to partner with TOCs in order to develop their ideas for rail and to become eligible for RSSB funding.
He says: “Last year [for TOC’16] we tried using technology brokers to help smaller companies link up with TOCs, but this year we ran a series of workshops instead and have been able to give advice directly where there has been an opportunity. This will help rail to benefit from the migration of proven technologies from other industries and to adapt them for the rail sector.”
The overall aim of RSSB’s Innovation Programme is to render itself redundant, says Webster, as TOCs and other stakeholders grow the confidence to self-fund future projects, having achieved successful outcomes through the competition framework.
RSSB is also evolving, he adds, with plans to offer consultancy services on a fully commercial basis in support of innovative projects, once the industry is in a position to allow financial support to be withdrawn.
“Instead of taking the lead we will support these organisations as our clients and begin changing our role towards becoming a supplier,” he adds. “It’s about changing the dynamic of RSSB to become more commercial and support individual organisations - not just under the DfT’s instructions, which will continue to be one of RSSB’s clients.
“The portals within the market have now been opened so it’s about giving them the further confidence to spend money and to continue developing these innovative concepts as commercial organisations. We have shown that if the industry buys into it then bringing these products to market will ultimately meet its needs, which are to reduce costs, increase profitability and improve customer service.”