As Network Rail approaches the start of its five-year Control Period 6 (CP6) funding cycle in April 2019, the network operator is exploiting more value for money out of its installed base of ABB Ability™ Ellipse® to provide a scalable structure for its digital railway strategy.
Having the overall drivers of safety, performance and cost control, Network Rail is keen to reduce potential risk to its employees and limit the number of planned and unplanned maintenance operations.
Around 4.7 million journeys are made every day on the UK’s rail network and passenger numbers have growth significantly in recent years. Therefore Network Rail recognises that maintaining and creating extra capacity is essential. In addition, after comparison with other railway networks, the operator has seen potential to improve efficiency.
‘Predict and prevent’ approach
Network Rail’s goal is to use a ‘predict and prevent’ approach to maintenance. This will use targeted and effective maintenance to ensure that assets are available. In turn, trains will run on time and Network Rail will reduce the number of trackside maintenance jobs and avoid the need to send technicians onto the line.
Network Rail is already making use of ABB Ability Ellipse as the software that underpins its digital asset management strategy. However, plans are now in place to scale up the adoption during the Intelligent Infrastructure Programme in CP6.
As Network Rail’s advanced analytics improvement strategy manager, Caroline Lowe is responsible for the operators approach to big data. She said: “As with many asset management companies, we have an IT landscape that combines old and new technologies and today only a few of these integrate with Ellipse, our core asset management system. We use Ellipse to actively manage our asset register, scheduled maintenance and reactive work orders. We currently close in excess of 90,000 work orders a week.
“We want to make greater use of the rich data in Ellipse by coupling it with other information systems such as our fixed sensor networks and train-borne sensors. We will then be able to make more intelligent use of our data to enable predictive risk-based management. This will provide a greater understanding of asset condition, degradation and the relationship to the drivers of railway performance – passenger delays, safety and cost.”
Track geometry
One early example of success with digital asset management is the TIGER (Track Integrated Geometry Engineers’ Reports) project, where Network Rail is replacing paper-based records with Ellipse. The software will not only provide a single source of data for track geometry to enable Network Rail’s engineers to plan their maintenance better, but it will also enable more straightforward regulatory reporting for the Office of Rail & Road.
Talking about the project, Ken Lambert, Network Rail’s Head of Maintenance Systems, said: “The TIGER project is one of our first to remove a legacy process and is progressing well. We collect data in many different formats and ways such as aerial surveys, train-mounted equipment, sensors and manual inspections. The key requirements were to ensure ‘one version of the truth’ and a user interface that makes data from of our sources come to life without having to search line by line.”
However, experience of previous technology projects convinced Ken to implement the project with technology and culture partners.
He said: “Previous programmes have focussed on the technology and not on the people. That’s why this is a transformational programme with 80 percent of the work being transformational and 20 percent being technology”.
Improving the tools
Having learned from Network Rail’s experience of deploying Ellipse, ABB is working with Network Rail to further enhance the software. One example of this is the development of a new Asset Performance Monitoring (APM) module, which is designed to provide information about the health of assets and prioritise maintenance and renewals.
The APM has been integrated with other modules in Ellipse and is being used to monitor assets such as circuit breakers and transformers. Current work in progress is the ongoing development of APM for Point Operating Equipment.
According to Caroline Lowe, this will support Network Rail’s objective for new levels of insight: “The current systems for monitoring health of critical point operating assets provide limited automation. Historically, false alert rates were too high and could only be managed by carefully calibrating each device: a major challenge as there are thousands of devices in operation. Therefore, such systems still rely on expert engineering knowledge to interpret alerts.
“Consequently, the work that we are doing has the potential to provide very significant value.”
Collaboration, rapid development of solutions, involvement of ABB as software supplier and strong project management have all led to success for the TIGER project.
Caroline summarised: “By working together we achieved in three months what other projects achieved in 18 – so I am very comfortable with the rate of progress.”
Looking ahead, Ken said: “For CP6 the challenge is to build on the TIGER project to drive change across people, data, investment and projects.”
“Looking ahead, the Intelligent Infrastructure Programme will improve the way we collect, record and use data. This will enable us to make better decisions by understanding the whole life of our assets and their related failure modes. Ultimately it will improve stakeholder and passenger experience.”
