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.

The Fifth International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and Maintenance is being held in Montpellier, France from the 22nd to the 25th of August. Digital Transit have submitted a paper for this conference titled “Railway Cyber Security and TS50701”. The paper was written by Dr Howard J. Parkinson (DTL), Daniel Basher (DTL) and Gary Bamford (Arnmore Limited).

The themes for this conference will include (but are not limited to):

• Rolling Stock
• Infrastructure
• Energy and Environment
• Signalling and Communication
• Operations
• Strategies and Economics
• Emerging Technologies

Digital Transit focused on the field of Cyber Security in the paper, specifically looking at the operational technology cyber security (OTCS) of rail systems, and how they are lagging behind other industries such as aviation. For the short paper, standards, guidance and research papers including the new CENELEC technical specification TS50701 were reviewed. Gaps in the coverage of this literature were identified, as well as further work that needs to be done to ensure the railway becomes more cyber secure in the future.

Some of the key findings of the paper included:

1. The IEC 62443 family of standards and guidance provides comprehensive guidance on securing control systems and are applicable internationally. However, the railway has many unique features that require specialised requirements, specifically the distributed nature and the complicated ownership model that the railway employs, that IEC 62443 does not consider. TS50701 now fills this gap in coverage.
2. There was no evidence that the research sufficiently identifies the consequences of cyber-attacks for use in a risk assessment. In comparison safety risk assessments have access to clearer consequences for accidents [7]
3. To help improve TS50701, further case studies are required on its application. It needs further work before it becomes an Euronorm.

Image from: https://www.cencenelec.eu/news-and-events/

Digital Transit recently took a trip to the Institute of Railway Research at Huddersfield University for a business development meeting, as well as to see their new robotics facilities. A tour was given by Prof. Gareth Tucker, a specialist in vehicle-track interaction.

Previously Digital Transit have made use of the facilities at the IRR, specifically the THOMoS high fidelity motion simulator, and are looking to collaborate in the future utilising the Pantograph test rig.

The IRR now has a new facility, which simulates a train maintenance depot. It is equipped with two large KUKA robotic arms, which have pinpoint accuracy and 7 degrees of freedom. These arms can be equipped with a multitude of equipment. One is currently equipped with a LIDAR sensor, allowing it to fully map out the bogie currently in the ‘depot’.

Underneath the bogie is another, smaller robotic arm. Because it is smaller, it is safer to use whilst people are present, and so can be easily programmed and tested in situ.

In the future Digital Transit hope to work on innovative projects alongside the IRR, which may include automatically cleaning the underside of diesel trains, and inspecting train bogeys for defects using machine vision.

Digital Transit, in cooperation with the Engineering Department at Lancaster University, are developing the ‘Automatic Deployable Train Step Unit’, or Deployable Step for short. The step aims to minimise the gap at the interface between a train and the railway station platform.

Boarding and alighting the train carriage is one of the highest risk aspects of rail travel. Risk to passengers at the Platform Train Interface (PTI) is equivalent to approximately 13 equivalent fatalities each year, and accounts for 48% of the total passenger fatality risk on the mainline railway network in the United Kingdom (UK). The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) state that “The railway is a key way for people to access employment, health services, education and leisure. It should be accessible to all. This includes:  Physical accessibility for the less able, elderly and those with children and luggage” [2, p.9]. Therefore, the rail industry has a legal and social responsibility to ensure that all passengers have safe access to this mode of public transport, and an engineering solution is required to overcome these problems at the PTI.

The problem is due in part to the physical distance between the train and platform, both vertically and horizontally. As well as creating a risk of passengers falling between the platform and the train, the gap means that people experience difficulties in accessing carriages. This particularly affects passengers with reduced mobility.

Here is a video of the step in action!