As Europe increasingly pushes interoperability and on-rail competition, it’s little surprise that the European Train Control System (ETCS) is gradually gaining acceptance, and the signalling manufacturers, which have driven the complex and sometimes convoluted development must be mightily relieved about this, because unless ETCS gains traction, that investment will be wasted.
But even as ETCS proves its ability to increase capacity and offer a degree of harmonisation between signalling systems, the CEO of Invensys Rail Group (IRG), Mr James Drummond, is both excited about its potential and concerned about its take-up. Drummond joined Invensys in October 2005 from Kidde, the global fire and safety products company, where he was director of business development for four years. He was previously strategy director for the aerospace services division of Honeywell, but he has a firm grip on the issues and possibilities facing the signalling business. We met in a small room at Invensys Rail Group’s stand at InnoTrans, and from the start, he pulled no punches with a stark warning. “If there isn’t a commitment for the plans that have been put in place some time ago for the corridors through Europe, then it becomes very difficult to continue the development of the system – and I’m thinking mostly of German Rail (DB) and the apparent intent to delay the implementation of ETCS until the establishment of Level 3.
“The industry has invested a great deal of money in version 2.3.0b and it’s going to be extremely difficult for it to invest in Level 3 if the customers don’t deliver on their earlier commitments. I think this would be a great shame as ETCS has great benefits for railways. It does offer a great deal more capacity, it’s certainly future-proofed towards further developments of its kind, it clearly provides interoperability, and it enables greater competition which all of the customers say they want. All those benefits are real. They are there to be taken now, and it would be a great shame to put them off.”
In saying this, Drummond is doing no more than expressing one of the great frustrations of the wider signalling sector: without DB’s acceptance of ETCS, many of its benefits could be frittered away, particularly as there is no working Level 3 hardware in service anywhere in Europe. But he also has a wider view of what the system can offer, and it’s an ambitious vision indeed.
“I think that beyond the application of the standard itself for the signalling and train control and the benefits it provides, there are significant further possibilities,” he says. “If we think of ETCS as a closed-loop control system, then there’s enough computing power in that to add other applications to what are otherwise just the signalling and train control elements. You can add automatic train control applications, fuel optimiser controls, traction controls, passenger information systems, asset management applications, onboard condition monitoring linked to asset management systems and so on.
“The applications are there, and the computing power you have on trains nowadays, and particularly in the future, means there’s a whole lot more the technology can provide. At the moment people are thinking about it too narrowly and are missing some of the opportunities available.”
And it’s when Drummond expands on the potential of ETCS that IRG’s vision comes to the fore, because it offers some exciting possibilities. “If we take Britain where the track authority, Network Rail (NR), wants to make the infrastructure as efficient as possible, and the train operators, who have a different set of agenda; they want to optimise train operations. So what does ETCS mean for a train operator? It means more boxes on its trains, so, who’s going to pay for it? They all worry about that. “Why don’t they think instead about what putting that computing power on the train can do and what other applications we can add. If you can use the processing power already on trains, then the operators can start to benefit. They can use those closed-loop control systems for asset management on trains, they can hook-in yield management, which makes them more profitable, and that’s what helps you to optimise the whole system.” Drummond says that at the moment operators are only looking at ETCS as additional infrastructure on their trains: “They’re not looking at the positive potential of it,” he says.
It is undoubtedly a cogent and compelling vision – a signalling system working with other railway management systems to provide a clear global view of how the system is performing, and indications of how it can be optimised. And, as Drummond says, the computing power on many trains today makes this possible now. So it’s little surprise that Invensys want somewhere in Britain to prove these concepts.
“We want to show people, and we’re ready to show them. NR rightly challenged the supply industry to be more creative, not just in its technology but also in the way it works and the way it puts together existing technology to produce much more efficient and cost-effective solutions and we’ve done that. To be fair to NR, we are starting to trial modular interlocking designs for low-density lines. It’s a step-change in cost reduction and ease of implementation.
“The beauty of that system is that it is modular and it scales surprisingly well so I think it has potential beyond low-density lines – but we would like that kind of access to demonstrate other technologies we have as well.
“We’ve been talking to NR about a much broader system where you can use the technologies to optimise the whole system and not just aspects of it like optimising the signalling or train control or passenger information. There’s no reason why you can have a single system which optimises all of that data and makes the operation of the whole network more effective.”
Drummond says Invensys has identified a largely self-contained operation in Britain where a whole suite of new technologies could be trialled without disrupting the wider network. While he doesn’t mention names, the only obvious candidate is the Merseyrail system centred on Liverpool, which is intriguing in itself as the passenger franchise is operated by Netherlands Railways (NS).
Pace of change
Drummond believes that as successive generations of signalling technology have evolved, lifespans have halved before being superseded by the next generation. Mechanical interlockings were at the fore for around 80 years; relay for 40; and solid state interlockings for 20. The implication is that the current generation of computer-based interlockings could already be outdated by the middle of the next decade. But with a wide portfolio of industrial automation systems in the wider Invensys portfolio, Drummond thinks there is a clear road map for how future technology will evolve.
“If you want to know what the future of railway signalling is like, just look at what’s going on today in other industrial automation because that’s what rail gets next. We are looking at the integration of other distributed control systems into a much broader system that links not just the operations in the process industry or a plant but also multiple plants so you optimise the whole system rather than simply optimising parts of the process or a single plant.
“The implication for rail is that the technology is all about optimising one particular aspect of the operations so it might be demand if you’re a train operator, or safety if you’re doing signalling, or capacity for the infrastructure provider, but actually what’s going on today in process industries is optimising the whole system, and that’s why I want a beta site, because that’s what we think the future of railway technology is.
US growth
This year Invensys acquired Quantum, United States, and Drummond is excited about the prospects for this company, which achieved sales of $US 26 million in 2007, and the technology it has available
“It has some very neat products. It has a working positive train control (PTC) system which it has on trial in Panama, and train control devices – end of train products, fuel optimisation, traction control products - all of which fit very neatly in our portfolio for North America but the most exciting bit is the positive train control.
“Quantum is a very innovative company; it just lacks scale. It’s very difficult for a Class 1 railway to say: ‘I’m going to put my entire fleet under your positive train control but you’re a $US 26 million company otherwise I’ve got GE or Wabtec to choose from’. Now they’ve got a Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 company backing that, so the scale issue’s gone away, and I think the Quantum PTC system is a very competitive offering.”
Looking forward
Despite the current crises in the financial markets, the outlook for infrastructure projects is good. Drummond says the long-term trends are well established. The driving forces are are long-term population growth, demographic shift into cities, long term GDP growth, environmental pressures, and cost of energy, all of which support infrastructure investment of rail, especially in and around cities.
Unsurprisingly, Drummond is positive about the future. “I think it’s very clear that Invensys is a process controls and automation business, and whatever industry you look at vertically – whether it’s petrochemicals, oil and gas, nuclear power generation or rail - many of the underlying technologies are very similar and there are applications we’re already using very successfully in other industries that we can move over to rail.” One of the technologies used in IRG’s interlockings is also used in emergency shut-down systems for nuclear power stations.
“There is simulation software that can help you design a petrochemical plant and then play with it so you can change the variables and the inputs to see what that does to the efficiency of the plant and what it does to the economics and financial output. The same software can be used for modelling timetabling and scheduling, and you can link that to the operations control centre to create a dynamic scheduling system.
“That’s why this makes sense for Invensys. It sees its core business as investing in process industries, because its technologies are applicable in all of those. Invensys now has cash to invest and is looking to make the most of existing applications we have – and acquisitions as well.
“The rail industry gets tomorrow what other industries have today. There are good reasons for that because it is a safety-critical industry, even if those applications are working in other safety-critical industries. There is a unique set of circumstances around rail which will be true forever. “Nevertheless, what is going on today in process industries will be what happens in rail in the next era, which will come much quicker than before. I think the communications and computer-based control systems make those changes much easier than before so the only barrier to it is how quickly the rail industry can allow demonstration and approvals of these technologies.”
The ambition and vision behind Invensys Rail Group’s strategy could transform operation and management of railways if it really delivers everything Drummond says it can. From his point of view, perhaps the most exciting thing is that the technology is here and it’s happening now.
