Hitachi Information Control Systems (Europe) Ltd are delighted to have been shortlisted for the Spotlight Rail Awards ‘Outstanding Project’ category in a joint entry with Network Rail.
The project at THAMESLINK showcases the next steps of improvement to ARS for Signallers and streamlining design, training, and backroom logistics – delivering Hitachi’s solution to Network Rail in a professional, collaborative model.
The project was a collaboration between Network Rail and Hitachi project teams, leading to the first phase commissioning of ARS (Automated Route Setting) into Three Bridges Rail Operations Centre (TBROC) in December 2022. This project superseded the Thameslink Traffic Management (TM) programme at TBROC that in conjunction with the fitment of ETCS and ATO on the Siemens trains, was intended to deliver one of the long-term objectives of the DfT – the delivery of 24 trains per hour through the Thameslink core.
The Thameslink contract covers a distance equal to 20 minutes’ travel time on either end of the central section between Blackfriars and St Pancras International which is a bottleneck where several lines converge. One of the major project challenges is regulating trains through these areas at times when the schedule becomes disrupted.
“The eight new ARS workstations have contributed to train performance improvements, reducing delay minutes and the number of wrong routings thereby improving the overall customer experience, whilst reducing Signaller workload”, says Denise Watkins, Head of Sales at Hitachi, “The project has been a great success and has been well received by the signalling teams who will utilise the new technology and the support this gives”.
13 November 2023
