Traffic Management Technology

The digital layer of intelligence improving performance on the UK railway

By Gavin Panter

Business Development Director, Resonate

In April 2021, at the height of the COVID pandemic, Luminate Traffic Management went live on Network Rail’s Anglia route in the UK, as an enabler for the company’s 21st Century Ops strategy. Within a few months of beginning operation, Ian Barnes, speaking on behalf of the company had described Luminate’s performance and benefits as “exceeding expectations”.

In a new and demanding age of connected and intelligent transport, technology specialist Resonate is taking the lead to improve capacity and performance through decision support tools. Their Luminate traffic management system is already improving performance, increasing capacity, and managing disruption, as well as introducing sustainability benefits for Network Rail’s Western and Anglia Routes and their customers.

Network Rail has been reaping the benefits of the system since its introduction on its busy and complex Western Route. It’s nearly four years to the month that it went live as the first integrated traffic management system commissioned on the UK railway, helping control trains out of London Paddington to Bristol, Oxford and Newbury.

On its first day of operation, Luminate enabled successful interventions hundreds of times and has continued to forecast and alter train movements, identify and resolve conflicts, re-plan train schedules and enable changes to platform occupation; all from one single screen. Traditionally traffic management was sold as something that will help performance and while it is vitally important in doing that, it also helps you when it comes to safety and sustainability. Luminate is providing a joined-up view, giving a single source of truth across whole routes and journeys. It offers a true picture of any big events that take place, giving the industry all the facts on its impact, not only in the immediate vicinity and surrounding area, but those reactionary impacts that can occur many miles away.

Decisions being taken in isolation do not give the very best outcomes. Luminate is a much wider toolset, able to look at everything within its area and span of control and do it based on the best possible evidence for that whole area. Resonate believe that this is very important for the overall train management experience.

The evidence is there that when Luminate is active, the average time loss per train in the area under its control dramatically reduces and that leads to a better operating railway and a better operating railway inevitably leads to a more efficient one. This also has a critical safety impact, as trains are approaching fewer red signals, because trains are running where they should be, creating less conflict.

By implementing plans based on powerful predictive analytics, alongside real time running, Resonate’s results-focused software is working to deliver improved train service delivery for passengers and freight.

Platform Docker – Paddington

Average Time Loss

A traffic management system is a data driven, control layer that sits on top of the signalling system. It looks at everything that’s taking place within its area of control and analyses it many times a second.

It’s constantly looking to see what is happening and is able to make the very best decisions that support controllers and signallers, leading to a reduction in workload.

After the success of the initial deployment into Thames Valley Signalling Centre at Didcot, Network Rail Anglia decided to implement Luminate’s technology to enable the transition to a new method of operational working. Again, one year was given to have the system up and running and delivering benefit.

The Anglia implementation came with its own challenges because of COVID, so Resonate created an innovative online training system, within weeks. This ensured that everybody who needed to be trained on the system was able to and the system went live bang on time in April 2021.

The capability of Luminate, and that training, was put to the test within a few days of going live when overhead line problems at Liverpool Street Station caused three platforms to be closed.

Under normal operation, Network Rail would have implemented a contingency timetable, which would have cancelled some services and delayed numerous others. This would have created chaos on the concourse and had an effect on both the following day’s services and overnight fleet maintenance

However, using the scenario capability of Luminate, the full timetable, including the evening peak, was shown to work across the remaining platforms. The plan was created and implemented, enabling ARS (Automatic Route Setting) to route trains to their new platforms and to inform passengers and crew of the changes. The timetable ran without an issue and demonstrated the power of Luminate to support train service delivery, whilst fully informing all those involved in the process.

Luminate can work in areas where ARS exists, but also in those where it doesn’t. The benefits of a Train Graph, Platform Docker, Electronic signal box simplifiers, as well as the linkages to industry systems such as TRUST, Stock & Crew Systems and C-DAS are available for all, with many being a UK, or even global first. Because it is a data platform and not hardware it is easier to add to the system, without affecting the safety level of the railway. What you’re doing is being the automatic controller/signaller on top of what is already there.

Anglia has had a couple of releases since it has gone live and Western has had eight or nine. They are semi aligned so they are continually benefiting from improvements and if there’s a major But this is just the start for Resonate and Luminate. They have proven that they can implement the system in a year and they believe that they are now at that point where vast areas could be done even quicker than that. They also really understand both the internal workings of Network Rail and its messaging systems, so the results are only ever going to get better.

The future looks incredibly bright for Resonate. Recently the organisation was behind a global rail industry first, when Network Rail launched a new pilot project, integrating its traffic management system with Great Western Railway’s (GWR) crew and stock resource management system.

This involved integrating Worldline’s crew and stock software ‘Integrale’ with Luminate, operating on the Western route between Paddington and Bristol. However, the benefits of this will be felt right across GWR’s train services, which operate across the whole Western route.

Train Graph – Paddington

Summary

“Our ambition now is to expand to other routes and other areas regardless of who the signalling belongs too. We know our system works so we are passionate to expand both here in the UK, but also abroad. Luminate gives a fundamental change to the operational running of the railway. There are the benefits to all those using the system, all the way through to the end user, be that passenger or freight, and we can quantify those in a variety of ways.

I’m really excited to be part of this journey – who wouldn’t want to be involved in the future of how railways should be run? Traffic management is one of those enablers that starts to bring everything together and I can see what an important step change in operational practice this can be.

At a time when the industry is going through major change to bring that industry together, Resonate has the solution to join everything up in a controlled environment to operate the railway more effectively, giving that single source of the truth that operators have strived for.”

Gavin Panter is Resonate’s Business Development Director. He joined Resonate just over three years ago, having previously been Director of Operations at Chiltern Railways.

Contact Gavin at gavin.panter@ resonate.tech for more details.

voestalpine Railway Systems GOES ASIA

It is our pleasure to announce that voestalpine Railway Systems is coming one step closer to our esteemed customers in Asia.

voestalpine Railway Systems Asia was established in Bangkok as the central hub for our sales activities in Asia. This arrangement enables us to bring the high quality products and services, which voestalpine is well-known for, closer to our customers in Asia.

With the head office located in Bangkok our team is able to quickly react to our customers’ requests. It increases our flexibility and efficacy due to the shorter geographical distance and similar timezone of our customers compared to our locations in Europe.

voestalpine Railway Systems Asia is the central Service Center for Asia with support from our European experts in the various fields of Railway Technology. By choosing Railway Systems Asia as your partner, you choose European quality standards with the flexibility and customer oriented service culture from Asia.

Our highly experienced team at voestalpine Railway Systems Asia is available anytime to answer your requests.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Chief Executive Officer Dieter Schluck

Managing Director

Dieter.Schluck@ voestalpine.com

+49 171 5187770

Nancy Chua

Vice President

Nancy.Chua@ voestalpine.com

+65 97888793

Customer Management Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia) Chief Sales Officer Hannes Saurug

Managing Director

Hannes.Saurug@ voestalpine.com

+66 860002645 Ferdy Wijsman

Vice President

Ferdy.Wijsman@ voestalpine.com

+66 653499515

Customer Management Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Mongolia, Regional Support for DMT)

Donghwa Lee

Vice President

Donghwa.Lee@ voestalpine.com

+82 1086421051 Jane Wong

Vice President

Jane.Wong@ voestalpine.com

+852 93534931

Customer Management Asia (South Korea) Customer Management Asia (Hong Kong)

For further information, please visit our website: https://www.voestalpine.com/railway-systems/en/ The team of voestalpine Railway Systems Asia is looking forward to work with you on building the future of railways in Asia.