2. Increasing Asset Lifecycle through the application of Innovative Technology
Stirling Kimkeran – Head of Technology and Development Solutions

3. Engineering and Technology Solutions
Part of the Balfour Beatty Rail UK
300 professional engineering staff
Core business is the application of technology to improve infrastructure asset management and design

4. Asset Management Challenges
Superficially rail infrastructure is a simple engineering asset, however…
One with high utilisation demands and no redundancy
It can only be maintained during very limited and unsocial time periods
As it ages a good predictive understanding and plan is needed, or time can run out
It is geographically widespread, often in tunnel and with limited access
Assets have to be maintained in-situ and cannot be returned to a depot or factory
Multiple simultaneous degradation modes require different methods of assessment and competencies in repair
All of these challenges make for expensive maintenance

5. Life Cycle Costs
Around 65% of the life cycle cost of railway infrastructure is associated with operation and maintenance, over what is normally a very prolonged period. t 30 -
50 years
Cos t s
Planning
Realisation, Operation, maintenance
Removal
2 %
65 %
28 %
5 %

6. Maintenance Cost Variation
Harmonised benchmarking results from a range of rail operators in Europe show:
Its expensive
Average cost Eur73.9k /km
50/50 renewals/maintenance
Very variable
Best 50% less!
Worst 100% more!
Huge scope to improve
Ref: UIC LICB Benchmarking Study

7. Improved Asset Management Business Case
Results have shown that some of the best performing railways achieve this through having better information with which to drive the maintenance process
Asset management typically costs about 2% to 3% of the cost of maintenance
Properly implemented it can deliver a 10% to 20% maintenance cost reduction ………….a significant return on investment

8. Why change? – improve safety
Reduced requirement for inspection staff to be on the track :
doing frequent visual inspection
by replacing cyclic maintenance with condition based maintenance.
Validation that overnight maintenance has been correctly completed.
Reduced risk of sudden unidentified degradation.
Reduced reliance on the “Mark 1 human eyeball”.

9. Why change? – improve efficiency
Autonomous monitoring removes the need for frequent inspection by patrolling staff.
Improved understanding asset performance:
enables maintenance to be planned when optimally required eliminating unnecessary interventions.
improves planning to avoid premature replacement of assets.
Earlier identification enables:
maintenance at an earlier stage, to reduce the scale and complexity of repairs required.
assessment of overall “fault portfolio”, interventions can be.

10. Why change? – improve train performance
Early identification of faults enables them to be rectified prior to failure and consequential train delays.
Elimination of need for additional train-paths for dedicated track recording vehicle runs.
Improved track quality reduces ware on vehicle components.
Improved track quality reduces the energy needed to run the service.

11. How do we change? Have a plan …
Change requires people to alter what they normally do.
So its really about people not about technology.
Having a clear step by step plan helps to keep people on board.

12. How do we change? – Develop your model

13. How do we change? – Make this the new BaU

14. How do we change? – Be proactive

15. Technology can be made to work for you …

16. Get the Fundamentals right
Understand your data
What you own
Where is it
What condition its in
One version of the truth
Standard referencing system for all data fixed as well as operational
Invest in getting your asset data “clean” and available in an industry accepted format
Have processes in place to ensure data can be maintained easily
IT systems are only as good as the data they have been provided
Invest in your work force
Aging workforce means a lot of domain knowledge is being lost
Systems led approach so engineers have 360 understanding of rail asset managment

17. Autonomous Measurement Systems
New track geometry measurement equipment compact and automated to fit to a passenger train
Dramatically reduced cost
Much more frequent measurement
Frequent measurement provides an early indication of developing faults and understanding of deterioration rates
This allows for optimal maintenance
At an early stage where necessary to prevent failure
Where safe, as late as possible to minimise intervention costs or when other work is planned
Mandated for all new UK fleets by the DfT
TrueTrak selected by both Hitachi and Bombardier
Cross Rail are measuring signalling balises and noise

18. Handling multiple data sources
This gives you:
A constant data supply
With no manual effort
Data is for TODAY
And every day …
A modern approach:
Frequent measurement
Automated analysis
Gives - continuous alerting
Gives - continuous trending
Lets you implement
Change that works for you …

19. Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR)
OmniVision is being used to provide an automated Basic Visual Inspection (BVI) of track for Network Rail’s Plain Line Pattern Recognition project.
5 systems and 1 processing centre
Savings of ~ £7M p.a.
More efficient and effective use of the work force
Condition of asset data automatically reported and is consistent, auditable and accurate