28
FEATURE
CLIVE KESSELL
T
he need to create more capacity on the UK rail network has been reported many times. Clever signalling systems to allow closer headways, longer trains with longer platforms, even more infrastructure - these are all part of this objective and, slowly but surely, things are beginning to happen.
However, increasing capacity is one thing, developing a timetable to fit in all the extra trains with a minimum of conflict is something else, all too easy to overlook. The London & SE section of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE) had a recent talk on Delivering Better Timetables, given by Kris Alexander, the programmes and support services director of capacity planning within Network Rail. It proved to be fascinating.
Some basic statistics The relationship between timetabling, signalling and command & control is crucial. Network Rail provides paths for 23,500 trains per day, carrying 4.8 million passengers over 900,000 track miles,
Rail Engineer | Issue 183 | April 2020
passing more than 1.5 million signals (hopefully at green) with 220,000 station stops. The plan is for all trains to arrive exactly on time - to the minute. Travel patterns are also changing. For the December 2015 timetable change, some 10,000 changes were requested. For May 2019, that number grew to 45,000. The number of trains per weekday has increased by 6.4 per cent in the last 18 months, excluding freight, empty stock movements and non-franchised operators. At weekends, Saturdays has seen an eight per cent increase and Sundays 12 per cent in the same period. The current timetable performance is around 94 per cent of trains arriving within a minute of right time, but that general statistic can hide some services which are
much worse than this. Incidents are critical as they represent the biggest risk for achieving right time arrivals. The timetable is not just about passenger train services - it also has to encompass freight and non-franchised operations. A ‘good timetable’ might be judged by the following factors: » Most trains arriving right time; » Regular timetabled or clock-face departures; » Easy recovery from any disruption; » Providing services that impact on economic growth; » Maximising the assets, primarily crew and rolling stock. Many of these mean different things to different people.
