Marcus Carmichael
Professional Lead Operations and Performance Research, RSSB
There’s a marvellous piece of cutting-edge maintenance kit out there on the rail network, a ‘semi-autonomous self-powered vehicle’ to give its proper name, aka FELIX. It can be used to check switches and crossings.
FELIX, developed by Italian company Loccioni, can do an inspection in 2 minutes that would take an engineer 37.
Winner of the Safety Achievement of the Year Award in the 2024 National Rail Awards, it uses laser and video technology to measure the geometry and rail profile of switches and crossings.
And by using this equipment we can keep workers out of potential danger on the track and not require them to go out in all kinds of foul weather.
But despite its capabilities, FELIX has not been used as often and widely as it could be. This is due to restrictive historical standards and definitions in the Rule Book that haven’t always kept pace with technology.
FELIX is effectively a trolley and, as such, would come under protections arrangements that are less onerous than for on-track plant.
Existing definitions refer to a trolley as being hand-propelled, which FELIX clearly isn’t. But placing it in the plant category means it needs a more complex procedure for its operation.
When FELIX is used, a possession arrangement (closure of a track with engineers in control) is needed rather than a line blockage (a less extensive closure), signal protection can't be used, and many different layers of control come into play. And because of these added restrictions, FELIX is deployed less than it could be.
Faced with this, Network Rail came to us with a challenge: 'We've got this great bit of kit, but these definitions don't match reality in the modern world'.
We took up the gauntlet and have taken it forward as part of a research project. We’re looking not just at FELIX, but at other autonomous inspection devices out there now or coming soon, which we could be able to use more easily and more widely.
We are reviewing Britain’s current rail rules and definitions, and standards and definitions reflect the direction of innovation that can be foreseen.
We’re asking: how do we make sure that a coming technology will work within our standards framework and not have to wait years for the standards to catch up with it? The work is about determining what these definitions need to be and having an evidence base that enables us to be comfortable with how these things will work safely on the network.
A safer future through robotics innovation
The UK government recently announced a major drive by the Regulatory Innovation Office to strip away red tape from robotics and defence innovation, streamlining overlapping requirements so products can be brought to market safely but faster. Rail is playing its part in shaping wider policy as our Director of Sector Strategy co-chairs the cross-sector National Committee on Robotics Regulation and Standards (NCRRS), and the work done by NCRRS for the Department for Science and Technology highlighted that standards and rules within individual sectors could limit the implementation of robotics and autonomous systems.
Our work on examining the rail standards and rules is aligned to NCRRS’s aims and objectives, and they have endorsed the project as one of the three projects that they think will begin the journey to reducing red tape and barriers to implementation.
Having an updated set of rules, standards, and definitions will help the supply chain understand what they can and can't do as well as remove some of the grey areas that exist at the moment.
Aside from easier application and faster completion of tasks, the biggest benefit will be track worker safety. If people can be brought together to work harmoniously with technology, they can be kept in a position of safety to do their jobs effectively while the technology goes out there in in the dark, the wind, and the rain instead of them.