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ERTMS: COMING TO A RAILWAY NEAR YOU… Ron Bailes and Paul LeVesconte provide this guide for operators and point you to all the further information you may need to get ready for the big changes ahead! the european Rail traffic management system (eRtms) is being rolled out across europe and indeed many other parts of the world. eRtms was designed as a standard product for the european network and most applications have been to ‘new build’ high speed lines. Retrofit – where eRtms is applied alongside existing signalling or replaces existing signalling - is a relatively new concept and Great britain is in the vanguard to develop operational requirements and operating rules that enable safe and efficient operation. In Gb, the application of eRtms will form the keystone in the development and application of new technologies and support the introduction of the Digital Railway. the Cambrian line early Deployment scheme has been the first application of the system in Gb and a national rollout of the system will shortly commence with a level 2 overlay (eRtms working alongside existing signalling) on the Great western main line and (with the exception of the first six miles) a level 2 ‘signals away’ (eRtms replaces existing signalling) application on the east Coast main line. Deploying eRtms to the Gb railway will provide opportunities to provide considerable safety, performance and financial benefits, so much so that it is clear to see why eRtms is the signalling system which is fast becoming a global standard and is the choice for the future. However, here is some food for thought:
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from the operators’ perspective, the deployment of eRtms is not just a signalling renewal scheme. It represents a massive change to the entire operating philosophy of the railway network. Inevitably during migration between old and new, there will be varying degrees of knowledge and experience across the community of operators. It is therefore vitally important to ensure that people are supported and armed with the experience of the Cambrian operation, in order that we maintain a high level of safe operation throughout the transitory period of scheme rollouts. the national eRtms programme (nep) is currently developing a reference design for how the system will be applied in the various lines of routes. this work has proved to be extremely challenging, generally because of a Gb lack of experience in operating an eRtms railway and the very few operators with the requisite knowledge of the system specification. However, the Cambrian experience has proved to have been a highly successful means of gaining experience and advantage has been taken to maximise lessons learned from the operators of that route.
the development of the operational requirements starts with the operational experts from the affected routes working alongside network Rail signalling engineers. the concept is that the operator describes how the railway will be used and to seek common ways of how to do things, but to allow for variants. using this methodology, it is possible to map the current operating railway onto an eRtms railway and to enable the engineers to extract the operating requirements and to establish the application design. the application design is route specific and is the key to maximising the 4 C benefits Cost – Carbon – Capacity – Customer. However, the devil really is in the detail. there are no ‘workarounds’ with the design. If there is no signalled route for movements, it is very difficult to carry out an operation since every movement is protected. this had proved extremely challenging to the engineers and operators and has forced a considerable amount of lateral thinking about the manner in which we do things. time and time again during the build and examination of operational scenarios, bi-directional signalling has proved to be a pre-requisite in order to gain efficiencies and to support degraded operation.