FEATURE
Michael Hamlyn (Kusieog Hong Kong) spoke on the reliability implications for brownfield signalling. Engineering resources It is not just the UK that is hindered by a lack of signal engineers - most other countries face the same problem. The loss of the traditional entry and training regimes, when the railways were vertically integrated and many engineers stayed with the organisation for life, has had an adverse impact on recruitment and retention. The emergence of small companies, whilst good in some respects, has meant most cannot afford to take on trainees. Even those that do have apprenticeship schemes cannot offer the same breadth of training that existed in the past. The result is a significant traditional skills gap. People with other skills (often in IT) compensate to a degree, but with the risk that the basics of signal engineering are not understood and safety and operational errors result. So how to solve the problem? Daniel Woodland from Ricardo Rail put forward some suggestions. Listing the general trends of business and engineering is a good starting point: digitisation, security, cost efficiency, sustainability, artificial intelligence, gender shift and resource scarcity. Applying these to the railway signalling sector (and indeed other rail disciplines) for the next 20 years gives: »» Automation and implementation techniques; »» Globalisation with need for standardisation and modularity; »» Cyber security and threat to digital systems and Big Data; »» Cross fertilisation of technology from other industries, for example autonomous road vehicles. These are the elements with which
young people will identify, but they must be coupled with a better teaching of the basics. Business and individual needs have to converge and employers are slowly starting to realise that the engineers of the future will transfer between industries much more readily than in the past. Training has to take on a different format than before, with the acceleration and encouragement of apprenticeship programmes, university degrees linked to rail, graduate training placements, support for external training courses, continuance of local in-house training, sideways and upwards moves by planned rotation, self-driven learning within companies, greater emphasis on tested competence, insistence on CPD and professional registration, and participation in conferences and on committees. All this, plus a recognition that there is no single solution and that everyone has a different development need. The IRSE annual skills survey shows a decline in both numbers and skills from 2012 to 2016. Sam Loveless from Siemens, in recognising that significant technological changes occur every three to
four years, also suggested BIM techniques to bridge the gap between signalling and other disciplines. The use of virtual reality to take people “out on to the track” would create a better understanding of the real railway without the safety risks. Another idea came from Alexander Patton of Siemens UK on the need to re-invigorate STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - by creating an ATO model railway that school children could build using typical school electronics kits. Packages such as Raspberry Pi, Scratch and Python are readily available in schools and these can be used to simulate interlockings, axle counters and signal panels, all integrated, with the addition of simple LEDs for signals, to form an introduction into object-oriented programming. It’s a great idea, but it will need established signal engineers to participate in the STEM programme. Even if sufficient engineers were available, there remains the problem of quantifying the skills needed. Alex McGrath and Richard Stephens (picture below) from Australia told of three recurrent problems: »» People with lengthy signalling experience often cannot perform a design task; »» People with above average competency in a specialist area lack the flexibility to take on new or more complex tasks outside of their immediate experience; »» People who are both competent and experienced in engineering cannot produce quality work in pressurised or commercially adverse situations. This thought-provoking argument was typical of this year’s Aspect conference, and it was a challenge to absorb lots of information in three days. Nonetheless, many topics emerged and it can only be hoped that the delegates will take back the ideas, decide if they are applicable to them, and develop them in to beneficial solutions. Well done the IRSE for staging this truly international event.
Rail Engineer | Issue 160 | February 2018
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