School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering

The Repoint project is a response to the call on Railway Capacity: overcoming the constraints caused by nodes (stations and junctions) on the rail network. The research is inspired by other industries, particularly aerospace, and will examine whether the redundancy concepts which are readily accepted in other safety critical environments could be used beneficially for track switching on railway networks. A potential solution would be a composite turnout comprised of more than one set of points to provide the redundancy.

The research question is:

Could a fundamental re-think of railway track switching ease some of the current route setting constraints to provide higher capacity, and provide a significant reduction in operational unreliability arising from points failures?

RWA Rail Ltd – a consultancy organisation specialising in projects looking to improve the rail industry’s effectiveness and efficiency. The company has wide ranging experience in rostering, performance modelling and assessment, timetable development and capacity planning. http://www.tracsis.com/rwa-rail-overview.htm