CASE STUDY

Rail Safety Regulations 1999 – Support To NR in Application For Exemption For Paddington 0-12 MP

Overview of Deliverables

Vertex Systems Engineering (Vertex) have assisted Network Rail (NR) in gaining a second Railway Safety Regulations 1999 (RSR 1999) exemption caused by the introduction of non-Automatic Train Protection (ATP) trains in the Paddington-Airport Junction area. This exemption became necessary due to the anticipated delay in commissioning European Train Control System (ETCS) train protection in this area and the introduction of Crossrail and other stock lacking Great Western (GW)-ATP.

Vertex have provided optioneering and qualitative assessment of options for the provision of train protection or alternative mitigations in the area and supported the wider submission of the exemption request to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR). 

Picture courtesy of Matthew Parker

Vertex had previously supported NR in gaining an acceptance for enhanced Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) as a mitigation for loss of GW-ATP train protection in the same area.

Deliverables Included

  • Convening an Options workshop involving all relevant parties – NR, operators and safety specialists
  • Options Identification of potential means of providing train protection or similar mitigations to enable compliance with RSR 1999, as well as
    other options requiring an exemption
  • Options Analysis to determine the impact of each option under a variety of timetabling considerations for a variety of factors including nonquantifiable safety benefits, broad costs and impact to all affected parties
  • Safety assessment in two stages:
    • Stage 1 – Workshop utilising output from ALARP options assessment to determine the option to develop
    • Stage 2 – Complete CSM activities to determine the level of safety risk of the chosen option
  • Support to NR in preparing deliverables submitted to the ORR

Technical competencies applied in the delivery of the contract

  • Analysis of complex rail environment, including uncertainties inherent to predicting numbers and types of rolling stock in future timetables
  • Provision of technical reports clearly setting out the process followed, findings and conclusions
  • Working to tight deadlines with multiple stakeholders 
  • Provision of subject matter expertise in common safety method (CSM) and signalling technologies

Value added initiatives

Vertex resources were centrally managed to ensure efficiency in deployment as required. This was to mitigate the risk of overuse of resource within the programme.

All resource that was deployed to the project were subject matter experts and fully conversant in the programme, this prevented any delays through learning requirements.

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VERTEX London, Europe

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EC4M 9AF, United Kingdom
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