Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/I010637/1
Title:	CHALLENGING ESTABLISHED RULES FOR TRAIN CONTROL THROUGH A FAULT TOLERANCE APPROACH
Principal Investigator:	Mei, Professor T
Other Investigators:	Nefti-Meziani, Professor S Liu, Dr R Carey, Professor M
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Sch of Computing, Science & Engineering
Organisation:	University of Salford
Scheme:	Standard Research
Starts:	01 March 2011	Ends:	28 February 2014	Value (£):	345,887
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Transport Ops & Management
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Transport Systems and Vehicles
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 14 Jun 2010 Railway Capacity Call Interview Panel Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The operation of a rail network is safe-guarded through the use of train control and protection systems, in particular in the forms of block signalling and interlocking. To ensure the absolute safety of trains and passengers, the signal at the entry to any track block is set to red unless the block is completely ready to accept the next train, e.g. the points must be confirmed to be set in the correct directions and the track is confirmed as unoccupied. This means that a train approaching such a red signal must start to decelerate and prepare to stop from two blocks in advance, even though there may be minutes (or at least many seconds) before it arrives at the 'red' signal, by which time the block ahead will be cleared (as planned) in most normal operating conditions. The use of clearly conservative speed profiles on approaching such blocks has a knock-on effect on other trains and can cause a network to operate at considerably less than its full achievable capacity. In the foreseeable future, train control systems will be replaced by state-of-the-art railway traffic management systems, traditional fixed block signalling will be abandoned and there is scope for intelligent speed adaptation for trains similar to that proposed for road vehicles. Such ICT-led innovations will offer significant enhancement to network capacity, but only if the conservative 'rules of the game' are challenged at the design stage.This proposed research will develop a fault tolerant approach to the design and operation of the rail network, by integrating track design (e.g. the track layout, the positions of points and signalling blocks) with dynamic routing/scheduling, optimised using a novel evolutionary computational approach particularly suited for combining multi objective optimisation with safety/risk management. The term fault tolerance is used here in a broad sense, to represent any abnormalities or unexpected events in operations or equipment. Enhanced fault tolerant capability would provide safety assurance so that, in normal operating conditions, trains can adopt much faster speed profiles when approaching a 'to-be-cleared' signal block at stations and junctions than those currently permitted, effectively turning the status of 'be ready to stop' to that of 'proceed with caution'. In the rare event of a 'fault' in the system, e.g. a train in front fails to move out a signalling block as expected or a switch fails to operate as required, the train would be re-routed to take an alternative path. Relevant scenarios might include the management of right-turn junction conflicts, train routing through complex junctions at station approaches or the re-allocation of trains to alternative station platforms. Increased capacity will be achieved through improved capability to handle disturbances and/or reduced operating constraints, without compromising the overall integrity of the system.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.salford.ac.uk