How will passenger services be affected by the work?

How will passenger services be affected by the work?

Instances of train delays caused by trees falling onto the tracks could dramatically reduce as Network Rail, the company responsible for running and maintaining the railway, rolls-out a national “tree census” database with the ability to identify and target specific trees that could eventually cause problems for train passengers.

More than 10 million trees growing next to the railway have been catalogued as part of a sophisticated aerial survey covering 20,000 miles of Britain’s track. The database provides engineers with a heat map indicating higher priority “problem trees” or overhanging tree canopies which need attention before they fall onto the railway and cause delays to train journeys. Part of the Offering Rail Better Information Service programme (ORBIS), the database, now completed and deployed across the company, will revolutionise the way lineside engineers target their work, as well as save the company time and money.
By providing its engineers with an early warning system to identify potential problem trees and canopies encroaching on the railway before they fall, the ORBIS programme is saving tax-payer funded Network Rail thousands of pounds in repair and clean-up costs. Tackling potential problem trees early will also help improve the safety of our railways by reducing the likelihood of a train colliding with a fallen tree or branch.
A fallen tree damages a train near Cupar, Scotland during a storm in January 2015
A fallen tree damages a train near Cupar, Scotland during a storm in January 2015
The tree census is the latest offering from ORBIS, a transformation programme aimed at supporting the railway industry by collating, analysing and exploiting data from a variety of disparate sources  – from Brunel-era working drawings on parchment, ordinance survey maps, water and gas board plans, to high-resolution aerial and oblique imagery and Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) 3D imagery. So far, the ORBIS initiative has saved Network Rail £207 million by helping engineers make smarter decisions, and “predicting and preventing” incidents. New additions to the programme, like the tree database, mean ORBIS is forecast to save £281m by 2019.
The new programme allows engineers to target individual trees that could cause problems
The new programme allows engineers to target individual trees that could cause problems
Paul Meads, head of lineside safety at Network Rail said: “Our analysis revealed the majority of trees that fall on the railway during storm conditions are healthy – yet previous inspections may have assessed these as lower risk. We’ve surveyed up to 60 metres either side of the railway covering 20,000 miles, and catalogued over 100 different attributes per tree including height, thickness, health, slope angle, proximity to bridges and power lines etc., which are measured to predict the risk an individual tree represents to the railway.”
10 million trees were surveyed, 60m either side of the railway
10 million trees were surveyed, 60m either side of the railway
Alex Hinshelwood, Network Rail’s senior asset engineer in Wales, uses the database in his day-to-day work and has already seen the cost, safety and environmental benefits. He said: “From the first use of the data I was able to identify areas to be managed and remove the need for a tree survey in those locations. This allowed for immediate cost saving for the route.
Overgrown trees pose a risk to the railway, damaging equipment, trains and causing delays
Overgrown trees pose a risk to the railway, damaging equipment, trains and causing delays
“From my desk, I can analyse the trees that pose a risk to the railway, and using this data, I am able to develop a work bank for our vegetation management teams. Now, with targeted, evidence-based information, I can save money and reduce the need to carry out lineside surveys


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

15 Ways to Increase Productivity at Work

Image
15 Ways to Increase Productivity at Work . 1. Track and limit how much time you're spending on tasks  Track and limit how much time you're spending on tasks. You may think you're pretty good at gauging how much time you're spending on various tasks. However, some research suggests only around 17 percent of people are able to accurately estimate the passage of time. A tool like Rescue Time can help by letting you know exactly how much time you spend on daily tasks, including social media, email, word processing, and apps. 2. Take regular breaks. It sounds counterintuitive, but taking scheduled breaks can actually help improve concentration. Some research has shown that taking short breaks during long tasks helps you to maintain a constant level of performance; while working at a task without breaks leads to a steady decline in performance. 3. Set self-imposed deadlines. While we usually think of a stress as a bad thing, a manageable level of self-i...
Read more

Five Keys to Helping Students Read Difficult Texts

Five Keys to Helping Students Read Difficult Texts Add caption 1. BEFORE READING:  Preview & Build Anticipation   T.H.I.E.V.V.E.S. with Snatches .    Previewing, looking over a text before reading it carefully, is considered a key strategy of effective readers.  The three main functions of previewing are to see how a text is put together, to realize the content of what you will be learning and thereby build or bring to memory background knowledge about the topic, and to give you enough of the content to set valuable purposes for reading it more carefully.   Building anticipation, a separate principle from previewing but often done at the same time, motivates you to become engaged and committed to reading an academic text.  It takes reading out of the realm of going-through-the-motions and puts your mindset solidly in the realm of “I have much I want to learn from this and I want to.”   T.H.I.E.V.V.E.S. with Snatches  is...
Read more

Civil Services Preliminary Examination : A Perspective

Image
     Civil Services Preliminary Examination : A Perspective S. B. Singh The simple answer to an often asked question as to why  Civil Services  Examination (more popularly known as IAS Exam.) is so immensely popular among lakhs of hard working aspirants from across a wide range of academic disciplines is that a career in civil services provides not only status, prestige, security and comforts of a government job but also lends power necessary to make an impact on people, society and finally, on the nation. If there is so much at stake, it is only natural that this examination. should be the most fiercely contested exam among aspirants. At all the three levels of the contest (i.e., prelims, mains and the personality test), there are challenges. But it is at the first stage of the exam. i.e. the preliminary exam., that this exam is found to be the most challenging. Although prelims is purported to be just a qualifying test to allow a ...
Read more