INFORMED SOURCES E-Preview December 2013
Good grief! The December e-Preview already: where has the year gone? Well, gone in a blur as far as the railways are concerned, starting in January with the various reports into the Intercity West Coast franchise fiasco and followed by a series of high profile happenings rolling through the column like storm fronts from the
FGW Direct Award franchise marks end of era
Row erupts over Traffic Management System contracts
Making the DAS connection
ICEC franchise – the race to the north is on
ICEC franchise – exorcising West Coast ghosts
First off we mark the end of an era as First Great Western, swaps the last of the heavily back-loaded premium profiles, for a new Direct Award franchise agreement. There’s a widely held view that these Direct Awards mean more of the same. But each Direct Award marks the start of a new franchise agreement, with new financial terms.
In effect it recognises that the world has changed since the original franchise was signed and it is time for the terms to reflect the current market – and DfT’s changing aspirations. I’m writing a feature article on what that means for FGW in practical terms for the January Modern Railways.
First won the Great Western franchise in April 2006 when success in franchise bidding depended on the bravery of the bidder when it came to forecasting revenue growth. And First, was among the bravest of the brave.
Of course, assuming perpetual growth was not a complete gamble: the franchise agreement provided a degree of insurance against over-optimistic in the form of the Cap & Collar provision. While this capped the operator’s profits if actual income exceeded forecast revenue, the collar mitigated your losses if revenue was below forecast.
But only partially. I estimate that in 2013-14, FGW’s premium for the full year would have been around £540m, with revenue support from DfT of around £320 million equating to a net premium of £19 million/month .
Under the new Direct Award FGW’s net monthly premium will be £1.4 million, plus the prospect of some revenue share on top. Cue howls of outrage at First Group walking away from hundreds of millions in the original contract.
Well, yes. But as DfT points out FGW faces a £150 million bill for life extending the IC125 fleet, there’s the cost of Reading, Track Access Charges are changing, there are Schedule 4 and 8 payments and FGW is taking revenue risk over a period when the disruption will be rising. And when the Intercity East Coast franchise is let next year, it’s a fair bet that the starting premium will be a lot less than the current £16.9 million a month.
TMS contracts trigger review
When it comes to signalling and control Network Rail faces a dual challenge. First, it needs to cut operating costs. Hence the move to 12 Rail Operating Centres which will eventually control the entire network, replacing 770 odd signal boxes .
But the railway is increasing congested, with Network Rail, under the Regulatory cosh over poor performance and disruption. So, to improve reliability the ROCs are to be paired with a new Traffic Management System (
I covered
Missing from the this list is British company DeltaRail, which supplies the Integrated Electronic Control Centre (IECC) and its associated Automatic Route Setting (ARS). Next-generation versions of this proven kit are now entering service.
Underestimation
DeltaRail is another victim of Year Zero Mentality. The belief that anything developed pre-privatisation is irrelevant to today’s railway, This was highlighted in two papers in successive issues of IRSE News which referred to ARS.
One, a joint paper by two Senior Network Rail executives, described ARS as calculating the optimum order in which to clear signals for a given service pattern in their control area based on inputs from the signalling and train describer. The paper added ‘it takes little account of the ripple effect of a delay in one place being minimised at the expense of creating a greater impact somewhere else on the network’.
In the next issue, a paper by a past President of the Institution was even more dismissive. ‘The existing traffic management systems used in Great Britain contain little real ‘intelligence’. ARS is provided in all modern control centres which provides functionality to set routes in accordance to timetable requirements – but it cannot do much more than that’.
And, in an industry where engineers have always been reluctant put their heads above the parapet, the letters page of IRSE News lit up.
One correspondent riposted: ‘to say that it (ARS) cannot do much more than set routes in accordance with the timetable is a significant understatement of the capability’. He continued, ‘ARS can take account of late running trains and prioritise route setting at conflict points to minimise aggregate train delay. In complex areas it can also re-route trains where it is permitted to do so. There are also facilities to invoke contingency plans to reschedule the service in the event of infrastructure unavailability’.
Another letter thundered ‘to debase its (ARS) intelligence in this way is almost to call it moronic. Such a system could not credibly have been capable of automatically operating many of the busiest locations on the rail network for 25 years’. The author was, ‘increasingly dismayed by the number of people within the rail industry who deny the capabilities of ARS installed in the IECCs on the Network’.
Serendipity is important to a column like Informed Sources. Had there not been all the fuss in IRSE News I would have probably dismissed a press release from DeltaRail as technically interesting but something for the industry pages. The headline was anodyne: ‘DeltaRail wins approval for route setting technology’. But, as all good press releases should, the first paragraph really grabbed my attention.
It reported that DeltaRail had obtained Network Rail approval for its Advanced ARS in only 14 weeks. Then came the stiletto under the ribs. ‘Others’ systems have been in pilot for over two years, are not approved and can’t meet the requirements of the industry’. Phew, I hadn’t seen such overt commercial aggression in a press release since I was a young Turk in the English Electric Press Office.
EARS is claimed to be the first ARS ‘in the world’ to be fully compliant, without derogation, with Network Rail’s ARS+ specification NR/L3/SIG/10120 for automatic route setting. As part of the approval process EARS was piloted at the York IECC and DeltaRail claims that during the trial period there was a significant drop in delay minutes and an increased Public Performance Measure across the area covered by the pilot. Note, I have not verified this claim.
More serendipity five days later when Network Rail Chief Executive Sir David Higgins appeared before the House of Commons Transport Select Committee. He was asked to comment on concerns that Network Rail was not fully evaluating bids incorporating ‘new technology’ that had become available since tendering for the
Sir David was ‘aware’ of this case and shared the MP’s concerns. And, as a result, he has asked for ‘an independent review of the tendering process with that particular company that has queried that issue’. His ‘only comment’ to the Committee was that the company in question ‘doesn’t have a traffic management system’. ‘They (Delta Rail) hope to have one in a year or two’s time but they don’t have one now. They don’t have one that anyone else uses and we would be asked to take a leap of faith that that may happen’.
Hmm. Now we get to the philosophical bit. Note Sir David’s claim that DeltaRail don’t have a
In fact, I’m not sure that Network Rail can articulate what a
ARS is runs the railway in real time, dealing with perturbations as they occur. But in making its real time decisions it also looks ahead to consider the consequences and chooses the optimum solution based on the rules in its program.
Train Graphing simply looks ahead and flags up potential conflicts, alerting the controller that a decision needs to be made. Having decided what to do, the controller can then instruct the ARS to implement the actions based on the decision made from the situation shown on the graph.
I can see how graphing could be applied to long distance services on the main line, but on busy commuter routes, you surely need quick-thinking, far-from- moronic ARS, to make the real time decisions needed to keep the service running.
Meanwhile serendipity continues to build the narrative. More revelations next month.
Smart Driver Assistance proposed
A recent informal briefing on plans by the SWT/Network Rail Alliance to increase capacity into
Given that 24 trains are already running into
Theoretically, 30 trains/h would be possible, reckons the
Driver Advisory Systems (DAS) are already in use displaying speed information. But this is based on stored data plus the timetable uploaded at the start of the journey and the display is usually aimed at minimising energy consumption.
But supposing that, instead of the fixed timetable, DAS could be provided with real time data on how the planned schedule is actually evolving With such dynamic regulation each driver would see on the display the speed to be maintained to avoid having to stop. The result? The potential for between 24 and 28 trains/h.
Now my chum Clive Burroughs, First Group’s Engineering Director, has been bashing my ear about the wonders of DAS for several years now which is already fitted to the FGW IC125 fleet. And I should have paid more attention.
FGW’s IC125s are fitted with stand-alone DAS with able to upload data from track-side – such as the timetable at the start of each journey. Use this capability to communicate with the control centre and you have C-DAS – well, you would if the control centre has a Delta Rail IECC Scalable running EARS.
And according to Informed Sources, proposals for a C-DAS trial are being worked up. An off-line pilot, centred on up trains approaching Airport Junction, could be running in six months from the go-ahead. And if it worked off-line, evaluation in service could follow.
So while millions are being frittered on innovation competitions, here is a step change in train regulation using existing technology. Mind you, to sell it Network Rail a sexy new acronym would help. Any offers?
ICEC franchise prospectus issued
On October 25, the Department of Transport published the prospectus for the replacement Intercity East Coast franchise which is expected to run for eight to nine years from February 2015. Franchising Director Peter Wilkinson’s aim is to make franchising less prescriptive and more ‘bottom-up’, so the prospectus should be seen as an invitation to bidders ‘to help the Department test its thinking and generate ideas for innovation’.
According to DfT a number of areas ‘within the scope of this procurement’ are still being developed’. One example of this is the possibility of running trains to a small number of additional locations not currently served by ICEC.
Peter is, of course, the new apostle of speed, and the prospectus describes improvement in journey times to key destinations, as a ‘core driver’ of the business. In addition to specifying the first and last trains, the TSR ‘may’ include maximum journey times to key destinations.
So very much work in progress. It will be interesting to see how successful Peter Wilkinson has been in persuading the DfT machine to be less prescriptive when the
West Coast shadow over ICEC franchise
Mundane as it may seem, the really interesting section of the ICEC franchise prospectus was the insight into how DfT intends to avoid another Intercity West Coast franchise fiasco. It was not just DfT’s miscalculation of the Subordinated Loan Facilities (
ICEC is the first of the new replacement franchises with similar commercial risk to ICWC. It will see the first application of the Department’s new approach to risk mitigation.
According to the prospectus,
In his review of franchising Richard Brown recommended that future franchises should not be exposed to economic factors outside their control - exogenous risk. Instead, Government should take this risk.
So, as recommended by Brown, risk-sharing calculations will be based on deviations between a forecast of national
Roger’s Blog
First of all, thanks to all those who attended my presentation to the combined
Less enjoyable the following week was the launch of two more competitions under the FuTRO innovation banner. The Supermap Challenge asked ‘How do we create an accurate and versatile map of the rail network so that we can model ways to optimise the system?’.
As I was leaving for the evening function, Mrs F asked what the meeting was about. I showed her the invitation and she asked ‘can’t they produce the map themselves?’
So when, after the presentations, the organisers asked for a simple question to start the Q&A session I jumped in and asked for an explanation I could give when I got home. Much waffling and some hilarity ensued but the question remained unanswered.
On the up-side I made some useful contacts among the attendees. But these events really make me cross, because, like the map, the organisers often can’t articulate what they want – which only confirms the views of the railway industry among outside organisations.
This Monday, the IRO has an evening presentation on the Intercity Express Programme, which I really should attend. Or I could get on with my presentation for the Golden Spanners awards on Friday.
December starts with an IMechE Railway Division Seminar on the Rail Technical Strategy. I shall try not to be obnoxious, but a chap can only take so much innovationism. However the following week Christmas starts with the Rail Freight Group annual lunch, which should lift the spirits. Next morning there’s a seminar on ‘Next steps for
Meanwhile, time to assemble the trophies for Friday.
Roger