More than 50 public and private sector rail leaders gathered in Melbourne last week to hear from overseas experts on the best way to maximise the safety and productivity benefits of new European Train Control System or ETCS technologies.
Infrastructure and transport ministers have agreed on ETCS standards as Australia’s digital train control pathway, along with a new governance model to ensure the systems align and the country avoids a “digital break of gauge”.
To help Australia’s rollout, the National Transport Commission (NTC) held a Future Rail Technology Forum giving industry and governments the opportunity to learn from the UK and Europe, where versions of ETCS have been deployed for more than two decades.
In her keynote address, Melissa Horne, Victorian Minister for Ports and Freight, reminded participants that Australia is entering a once-in-a-lifetime transformation of how we plan, design and operate our rail networks to boost safety, efficiency and productivity. She said digital technologies are a key part of this change, but careful planning is needed to coordinate their rollout.
Some key advice from overseas experience includes:
• Treat the rollout as an organisational and operational transformation – ETCS is not just about technology.
• Harmonising operating rules and ensuring national alignment is critical.
• Stick to proven standards.
• Engage users early and keep them involved throughout the design and implementation process.
The resounding message across the conference was to keep it simple, and configure instead of customising.
Sverre Kjenne, Managing Director of the ERTMS User Group, told the forum that the delivery of ETCS in Europe had been slowed by a “jungle of versions”. The lesson being – standardise everything possible while leaving room for configuration to suit individual networks’ different environmental requirements.
During an NTC workshop as part of the Australasian Railway Association’s (ARA) AusRAIL PLUS event later in the week, a panel including Raquel Rubalcaba (Acting Deputy Secretary Infrastructure, Projects and Engineering at Transport for NSW) Wayne Johnson (CEO of the Australian Rail Track Corporation), and Stephen Lemon (Executive Director, Rail Systems & Operations Reform at the NTC) stressed that careful planning, proportionate deployment, and outcome-focused priorities are essential to ensure Australia gets the maximum safety and productivity benefits of these new technologies.
One size doesn’t fit all, the panel noted, with requirements in Sydney differing greatly from remote regions like the Nullarbor Plain, where full ETCS functionality would be prohibitively expensive.
“It’s about configuring the technology in a way that’s proportionate to the operating environment, the level of service, and the requirements,” said Lemon, adding that configuration is very different from customisation, which needs to be avoided as it causes escalation of cost and risk.
When taking a national approach, Australia must determine priorities, such as where to fit first and which trains to equip. Critical routes where drivers cross borders need high priority, Rubalcaba said, noting that it comes down to getting a clear, nationally-recognised understanding of what we want the outcomes to be.
Johnson said that for the ARTC, the rollout is part of a wider program to get greater alignment of its networks to help its customers. He added that this needs to be managed from a broader transport perspective, taking in the full ecosystem, not just infrastructure.
