As was widely anticipated, the now-named Williams-Shapps Plan proposes a
move toward Merseyrail-style concession contracts for operators, with a new
independent "guiding mind" for the rail network. Great British Railways (GBR) will take over
many of the functions of Network Rail, the Rail Delivery Group and the Department
for Transport, as well as assuming financial risk from the operators, taking
the lead on an overall coordinated strategy and contracting operators directly
against performance targets for efficiency and passenger service.
Most rail engineering work assumes decades-long life cycles for the
assets it produces and maintains, and the ability of engineering to respond
directly to the present crisis in the rail industry is of course
limited. But the structural changes we are seeing in the industry
now, or something like them, are going to persist for decades to
come. Engineering, like every other aspect of the rail industry, is
going to have to account for this new reality in planning its way out of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The impact of a change in the passenger-facing operating model might
seem to have only rather abstract implications for engineering, but as the
stakeholders change, so too will the requirements. Future rail
engineering will have to adapt to a different set of priorities, both with
respect to the greater degree of central coordination applied to the rail
network, and with respect to the changed incentive structure of the operating
companies.
Rail engineering has been dealing with increasing system complexity for
some time, from projects like the Digital Railway, as well as greater pressure
from stakeholders on safety, accessibility, and decarbonisation. But
with this faster-than-expected transition to greater central coordination for
the network, these pressures for greater complexity will both accelerate and
change in character.
Rail systems will need to collaborate better, as rail strategy becomes
directed from the centre and more focused on the integrated performance of the
network as a whole. And even insofar as parts of the rail network
can be treated as independent systems, more direct incentives on operators to
improve efficiency and passenger service will doubtless also translate into
more demanding requirements for engineers.
Systems engineering has already become an important tool for certain
parts of the Great British (GB) rail network and has, in the last decade, been
fully embraced by infrastructure owners like Network Rail and Transport for
London (TfL) as a critical component of the sophisticated engineering necessary
to deliver a more complex, interconnected, and digital rail
system. Even before these major structural changes to the industry,
rail suppliers were starting to wake up to the idea that participating in
systems engineering processes with those major contractors could help them work
more closely with their stakeholders and deliver better, more complex systems,
that integrate more closely with the broader understanding of the network and
its systems.
With this accelerated transition to requirements being driven from the
centre, suppliers will accordingly need to step-up their transition to a more
integrated approach to engineering. Systems engineering techniques
are fundamentally about finding ways to analyse, model and plan the behaviour
of a system as a whole and in its context, above and beyond the details of
individual components. By having a suite of processes and tools
designed to model and anticipate the structure of a system,
projects can have assurance from the start that the right asset is being built
in the right way, and that the project will interact appropriately with its
context.
Systems engineering has developed a wide range of processes and tools
for modelling and simulation, requirements analysis, scheduling, and all parts
of the life cycle, tailored to better manage the development of complex
systems. In particular, systems engineering takes a robust and
scientific approach to requirements management that cleanly and specifically
identifies ambiguities and gaps in stated stakeholder needs.
The requirements that result are – among other benefits – clear,
verifiable, functional, minimal and consistent. And, critically,
they are managed using tools which can integrate those requirements across
every part of the network, with seamless supplier collaboration and the ability
to see in requirements and models, how any given system is expected to
interface with the network around it.
As the rail operating model changes, more requirements will be
ultimately derived from the central coordinating body, and more of what is
expected of rail systems will require seamless, integrated coordination with
the network around it. Stepping up progress toward systems engineering use
could be the right way to engineer the railway out of this crisis, and beyond,
to the challenges of the future.
To read more about the Williams-Shapps review, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/the-williams-rail-review
If you have found this article useful, and would like to hear more about
how your organisation may use systems engineering to better embrace change,
visit www.synthesys-technologies.co.uk or contact us on cet@synthesys.co.uk
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