Scotland: Enabling Safer & Faster Access Through Technology
The CIRO Scottish Area were delighted to host their most recent event online.
On 8th May, Craig Milne, Planning and Logistic Director for Scotland’ s railway shared with members how Scotland is leading the UK in using emerging technology for safer and more efficient access to the railway infrastructure to undertake maintenance renewals and enhancement works.
Craig highlighted the need for change and to modernise the outdated manual protection processes in place for possession support staff safety and to improve access efficiency. With 14,000 possessions each year in Scotland, required to maintain a reliable, safe and affordable railway, there is a huge opportunity to deliver improved efficiency within the infrastructure access process.
The solution introduced in Scotland through the Resonate Digital Platform, consists of three main products:
• Scalable – the main signalling control system running the train service
• Luminate – the traffic management system managing the train service
• Initiate – delivering the engineering track access protection system
Focusing on the Initiate system, Craig explained how Initiate integrates the delivery of the timetable planning and engineering track access planning processes and how Scotland embraced and implemented this technology.
The adoption of this new technology involved a massive process change, with impressive implementation timescales from initial presentation to Network Rail in February 2024 through to the go live pilot in January 2025.
68 CIRO | Bulletin 55