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27.11.14

Network Rail to accelerate digital-enablement of Britain’s railway

Network Rail will spend the next 15 years dramatically speeding up the digital enablement of Britain’s railways, with an ambitious agenda focusing on signalling and telecoms but also affecting other aspects of the infrastructure and passenger experience. 

Paul Harwood from Network Rail gave more detail on the ambition in a presentation at the Future of Rail Conference in London yesterday. The Digital Railway initiative is a new project being driven by CEO Mark Carne, who joined the company this year.

The plans are tied around the next three control periods with Carne wanting the project completed in 15 years. The rest of CP5 will be devoted to drawing up a plan, acquiring the needed technologies and preparing “a strong case for the rapid digitalisation of the network”. Then CP6 and CP7 will see the plan being implanted, part of which will see ETCS trains and signalling rolled out and the removal of conventional signalling so that more trains can be digitally controlled on existing infrastructure.

Network Rail's Jerry England also spoke about the digital railway at the Future Rail Skills conference earlier this month, also attended by RTM. Full coverage will be in our next edition, but you can get a flavour of his speech from our tweets below:

 For more coverage of both conferences, see the next issue of RTM.

(Image: c. Jonathan Brady)

Tell us what you think – have your say below or email [email protected]

Comments

Gen Oller   27/01/2015 at 17:54

Temple have written our own piece on 'the digital railway', specifically the new ways of thinking and almost endless opportunities it could enable, find in Infrastructure Intelligence; http://www.infrastructure-intelligence.com/article/nov-2014/digital-railway-%E2%80%93-opportunities-enable-innovation-and-sustainability

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