We have updated our course to reflect the learnings from recently issued Rail Industry Standard RIS-0745-CCS Issue: One – Client Safety Assurance of High Integrity Software-Based Systems for Railway Applications which was developed to aid clients dealing with safety critical software after the Cambrian line wrong side failure.

We have also already added a short section on software design for cyber security (IEC62443 and TS50701) and how, for example, defensive coding is vital for cybersecurity

We have been providing training in for many years now against EN50128 and the newer EN50657 for rolling stock.

We also provide safety critical assessment services for up to SIL2 against EN50128 and EN50657

Digital Transit Limited are excited about the release of NVIDIA’s newest Jetson Orin products, the Orin NX, the Orin Nano and the AGX Orin. The products which are being released this year and are a huge leap for AI for video analysis. Here at DTL we are developing our own software that utilises AI on the edge, in the fog and in the cloud. The new Jetson Orin technology will allow DTL to use more powerful and energy efficient models on the edge such as faster inference for our RailSight-Assist system. The new Orin technology is a large step in the progression of AI technology in regards to their performance. Compared to the Jetson Xavier range, the AGX Orin performs up to 8 times faster than the AGX Xavier and can deliver AI performance that can reach 275 Tensor tera operations per second (TOPS). This is a significant improvement over the AGX Xavier which performs at 30 TOPS and was only released in October 2018.

We are very excited about these new products from Nvidia as they will enable us to provide lower cost, energy efficient solutions to the rail industry.

Digital Transit Limited (DTL) are excited to announce that a new office will be opening in Huddersfield. The new office is located in the University of Huddersfield campus in the 3M Buckley innovation centre.

The 3M Buckley innovation centre is a centre of labs and offices for enterprises and innovative businesses from across the region. Future collaborations with University of Huddersfield and DTL will include innovative new projects in condition monitoring and, media production for DTL’s future courses in safety critical software, ERTMS and rail cyber security. DTL will also be collaborating with the Institute of Rail Research (IRR) which is a world-leading centre of railway safety and engineering.

The location of the 3M Buckley innovation centre is shown in the google maps below.

The author of the banner image: https://huddersfieldhub.co.uk/ Available here.

We are pleased to announce that John Clegg has joined Digital Transit Limited (DTL) as a Non-Executive Director (NED). John’s career has consisted of vital roles that have led to him living in 3 different continents. In the early 1990’s he was involved in automated downhole steering system design and commercialisation. This helped John create concepts leading to the first rotary steerable system. John now works at Hephae Energy Technology as their Chief Technology Officer where he implements this technology to drill high temperature geothermal wells.

In addition to Johns professional career, he is an author of the book “Strategy and Innovation for a Changing World”. John is a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Distinguished Lecturer. He lectured worldwide on the importance of drilling accurate wells. He is a fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and graduated from the University of Oxford with a Master’s degree in engineering science. We are delighted to have John at DTL and look forward to working with someone with his experience and expertise.

Video courtesy of CEMIT (c) https://cemit.com/product/

Image: Evening Standard / eyevine)

After the tragedy at Grenfell tower, questions have been asked regarding the evacuation policy in place during the fire. It is important to determine the safest and most effective way for high rise residential buildings (HRRB’s) to be evacuated to prevent future loss of life.

The SAFE project was undertaken by UCLan (The University of Central Lancashire) and Digital Transit Limited (DTL) and funded by the Home Office to determine just this: what method is best for evacuating people, especially those with health conditions or impairments from an HRRB. The project would have been impossible without the support of London Fire Brigade, the Salvation Army, and 300 volunteers.  DTL have developed a system to detect and track people as they travel up and down a stairwell in a building that is being evacuated. The system uses the feeds from video cameras to make such detections and utilises AI object-recognition software to provide identification of individuals. Additionally, it features an identification system so that individuals who require the use of evacuation chairs can be tracked.

The system is designed to function in the demanding conditions that a fire can present, mainly low visibility due to smoke or power outages. It will do this by utilising thermal imaging cameras as well as the RGB cameras.

Below is a test example of the system tracking the number of people on each floor:

Each year, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Railway Division holds a competition of technical presentations. The competition is open to all young railway engineers including apprentices, undergraduates and those in the early stages of their career.

Daniel Basher, a product engineer at Digital Transit Limited took part in the competition, presenting work done on creating the Deployable Step for the Class 185 train. After winning the regional competition in the North West, he went on to compete in the final, held at the IMechE headquarters in London.

Out of eight finalists, Dan came in second place. A recording of the presentation can be seen below. More information on the step can be found in a previous blog post.

Digital Transit Limited, in partnership with Ian Rowe Associates Ltd, are working on the future of safety on Manchester trams.

Recent incidents have brought the issue of coupled tram safety to public attention in Manchester and to the Rail Regulator. Examples of this include a viral video of a man tram surfing between two carriages on the Metrolink in Rochdale who, whilst not injured, was still putting himself and others at great risk. Another example is a man in Manchester who fell in the gap between two coupled trams at a tram stop.

DTL are performing a feasibility study to determine whether a system comprising a thermal camera and image processing software can reliably detect when a person is in a position of danger between the two trams, and whether they are ‘tram surfing’ on the coupling or have fallen into the gap created by the platform and the tapered front of the trams.

This study is part of a larger project by Ian Rowe Associates Ltd to determine the optimal method by which to detect people falling into the gap between two coupled trams and tram surfing. This will be tested with a variety of tools including smart cameras and LiDAR. The project will use both computer simulations as well as real-world testing to evaluate the different vision options. The ultimate goal is to have a system which lowers the risk of double trams to be equivalent to the risk level of single trams.

At the Trafford tram depot in Manchester, DTL had access to a tram for two days, including a driver. Two cameras were set up, one on each side of the coupling. Footage was recorded from various angles and positions, and at different times throughout the day. All this footage will be used to produce a vision system that can detect people between the trams.

A preliminary version of this system was tested, and the results can be seen below.

Digital Transit look forward to further developing this technology, with aims to integrate this system across the Metrolink fleet.

Digital Transit have been in Dublin for the last three weeks, presenting each week a 3 day “Rail Engineering and Design Safety Management (EDSM) according to EN50126/8/9” course, as well as a one-day “Safety Critical Software in Rail (SCSR)” course to Irish Rail. These courses help attendees expand their knowledge and make better decisions around the standards and their application in the area of railway safety and software, deployment costs, and assist in de-risking the development lifecycle.

The modules are presented to a new group each week, and cover a wide range of modules including:
·      Case Studies of accidents related to design and inadequate EDSM
·      Standards for engineering safety and assessing and reducing risk including the latest EN50126 and EN50129
·      Railway systems engineering, integration and the new digital railway
·      The Scope of EN50128 and EN50567 for software.

The training will be adapted to meet Irish Rail’s specific requirements, taking into account feedback received from previous iterations of the course.

Click here for more information about the various training courses DTL provides.