RAIL INDUSTRY DATA PLATFORM AND DIGITAL TWIN

As part of BCRRE’s contribution to the Government’s Rail Sector Deal, it is extending existing plans for a Rail Industry Data Platform (initially intended to provide data crucial to R&D activity within the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network) to include the wider rail industry.

BCRRE’s Professor Clive Roberts, Dr John Easton and Dr Lei Chen will combine their extensive expertise to ensure that the first full-release version is available from spring 2020.

“Currently it is difficult to understand the wider systems context of industry problems with any degree of confidence,” says Easton, a lecturer in Computer Systems from the School of Engineering.

“The data platform will mean that rather than having access to just one or two datasets in isolation, we will have a range of data available that will allow us to look at the problem from several different angles.”

Alongside the data platform, BCRRE will lead in the design of a cutting-edge Digital Twin, a fully functional digital replica of the railway that is intended to drive innovation by allowing high-level analysis and the ability to see opportunities or problems before they occur in the real world. BCRRE has long been involved in world-leading simulation research, which in natural partnership with a Digital Twin will help deliver the next generation of railway traffic management and control systems.

Dr Gemma Nicholson, the Research Fellow who is leading this project alongside Professor Roberts, adds: “There is tremendous scope for railway Digital Twin technology. The Digital Twin will be the means to translate raw data into meaningful insight with real business value. It will allow us to take the real-time datasets, and exploit them to make sound decisions in the most appropriate way.”