Second international railway safety symposium resounding success
Mon, 06 Jun 2016 13:57:00 BST
Conference calls for new international organisation to promote and research the new safety management systems in railways
◄ Dr Coen van Gulijk left, pictured with co-presenter Dr George Bearfield, RSSB Director of System Safety.
SAFETY standards must keep pace with growth in rail travel, including the construction of all-new lines. The analysis of Big Data – massive amounts of information electronically culled from a vast range of sources – promises to be an important tool, leading to efficiency gains. A partnership between the University of Huddersfield and the UK’s rail industry body, RSSB, is leading the way.
A second annual symposium, which drew a multi-national audience to discuss the potential of Big Data in the rail industry, has taken place at the University. Now, there are proposals for an international society to stimulate the digital transformation of safety systems on the railways.
The University of Huddersfield is home to the Institute of Railway Research, based in an expanding suite of offices and labs. It has forged a five-year strategic partnership with RSSB and among the results are the annual symposia organised and co-chaired by the IRR’s Reader in Railway Safety, Dr Coen van Gulijk, who is investigating the potential of Big Data.
“We are still very much at the start of this transformation. One thing very clear is that this new turn in research creates new opportunities for railway safety and RSSB, and the University of Huddersfield have formed a very strong collaboration to that end,” said Dr Van Gulijk.
The 2016 Big Data Risk Analysis (BDRA) Symposium was opened and concluded by Dr George Bearfield, who is RSSB Director of System Safety, and it began with a sequence of presentations from members of the IRR, which has a multi-national team of researchers.
Peter Hughes provided case studies of the first applications of BDRA; Dr Miguel Figueres analysed the role of a future safety risk manager; Dr Andrei Loukianov spoke on BDRA computer architectures; and Dr Van Gulijk himself gave a presentation entitled “What BDRA is, what it isn’t and what it might be”.
The second half of the symposium featured contributions from Stirling Kimkeran, co-founder of Omnicom Engineering; Dr Matthew Revie of Strathclyde University; Dr Marcus Dacre of RSSB and researcher Andy Josolyne.
The success of the symposium led to discussions about the need for a new international organisation that would promote and research the new safety management systems in railways.
In his presentation, Dr Van Gulijk stated that its task would be “to promote the digital transformation of safety systems on the railways by providing a platform to exchange, discuss and/or consolidate IT transformation efforts.”
The society would be an international one and the 2016 Big Data Risk Analysis Symposium at the University of Huddersfield had an international attendance. In addition to the UK, there were delegates from Swiss, Dutch, Swedish and Australian rail companies and academic institutions.
