The chief architect of Jerusalem Municipality, Ofer Manor, and the chief executive of Transport for Greater Manchester, Dr Jon Lamonte, keynote the Light Rail 2016 conference in Melbourne on Wednesday and Thursday.
Light Rail 2016, organised by Rail Express publisher Informa Australia, takes place at Pullman Melbourne on the Park this week.
The conference will cover light rail from the technical standpoint, as well as customer service, planning and financing.
Wednesday’s schedule is as follows:
- 0800 – Registration and morning coffee
- 0855 – Opening remarks from Professor Graham Currie, chair of Public Transport, Institute of Transport Studies, Monash University
- 0900 – Welcome and opening address; Danny Broad, chief executive, Australian Railway Association
- 0920 – Jerusalem Light Rail – Leading the City’s Regeneration; Ofer Manor, chief architect, Jerusalem Municipality
- 0950 – Operating and extending the largest light rail system in the United Kingdom; Dr Jon Lamonte, chief executive, Transport for Greater Manchester
- 1020 – Ministerial Address – The ACT Government’s strategic vision; Simon Corbell MLA, minister for Capital Metro (presenting on behalf of the ACT chief minister), ACT Government
- 1050 – Morning tea
- 1120 – Delivering a 20 minute neighbourhood: Route 86 tram extension; Nick Mann, director of infrastructure, City of Whittlesea
- 1150 – Update on Gold Coast Light Rail; Campbell Mason, CEO, KDR Gold Coast
- 1220 – Operating the World’s largest light rail network; Duncan Smith, director of network strategy and growth, Yarra Trams
- 1250 – Lunch
- 1330 – Transforming CBD transport systems; Glenn Bentley, CEO, ALTRAC Light Rail, and Andrew Summers, project director of Sydney Light Rail, Transport for NSW
- 1350 – Transforming CBD transport systems (continued); Colin Innes, principal manager of safety, Transport for NSW
- 1410 – Keeping Sydney Moving; Marg Prendergast, coordinator general CBD, CBD coordination office, Transport for NSW
- 1430 – Preston Workshops – Australia’s latest piece of major light rail infrastructure successfully delivered by Coleman Rail, PTV and Yarra Trams; Bede Noonan, chief executive officer, Coleman Rail
- 1500 – Multimodal public transport; Simon Humphrey, strategy and commercial director, Keolis Downer
- 1530 – Afternoon tea
Following afternoon tea, the conference will split into a technical stream and a customer care and safety stream.
Technical stream
- 1550 – Chair’s remarks; Allen Maciunas, unit manager, tram operations, safety and service, Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure
- 1555 – Environmental challenges in maintaining low floor tram traction gearboxes; Dr Norbert Ritter, head of rail traction gearbox service, Siemens
- 1625 – Understanding core reasons behind a valid business case for an energy storage system (ESS) in a light rail network; Caroline Phillips, area sales manager – DC Wayside, ABB
- 1655 – Light rail transit systems and catenary-free solutions: Return of experience after a 10-year development period; Herve Mazzoni, tramway services manager, SYSTRA
- 1725 – Closing remarks
Customer care and safety
- 1550 – Chair’s remarks – Brian Brennan, general manager light rail operations, Transdev
- 1555 – Platform-carriage interface risks: A semi-quantitative assessment case study addressing SFAIRP criteria; Mark Andrew, principal consultant – risk and asset management, GHD
- 1625 – Taking the fluff out of safety culture: Lessons from oil and gas projects, Dr Emily Novatsis, principal human factors advisor, The Keil Centre
- 1655 – Light rail collisions: A thing of the past; Stephen Rudakov, project manager, Robert Bosch Australia
- 1725 – Closing remarks
Networking drinks will take place at the conclusion of the technical streams.