Digitally Enhanced Advanced Rail Signalling Services

Recent advances in technology and investments in infrastructure has enabled the UK rail industry to increase volume, improve visibility and adjust to variation of demand. Whilst improvements have been made, delays and lost customer hours are still increasing. Between April 2019 and November 2019 26.5m customer hours were lost on the underground compared with 19.3m in the same period for 2018. Given demand is set to increase further, and volume increases directly affecting train punctuality (Coxon et al, 2015), work is needed to improve the system performance of the rail networks, above and below ground.
Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services (DEAS) are expected to help improve performance, maximise productive capacity and open additional revenue streams. Few examples of DEAS exist in the rail industry, e.g. Alstom’s availability contract with Virgin’s West Coast mainline trains. Investigations are needed into how digital technologies can enhance business model design, impacting how business capabilities and engineering (including human factors) functions can be combined to improve performance and experience with rail transport systems.