Article written by Simon Cave – Sector Lead – Rail & Senior Principal – Project Management
Earlier this year, KiwiRail’s Future Rail team brought Vitruvius on board to spearhead the Digital Integration workstream for their ETCS Level 2 Programme in Wellington. This will be the first ETCS Level 2 installation in New Zealand, which promises to significantly increase the capacity of services in the metro area by removing lineside signals and reducing train headway.
We clinched this role thanks to several key factors:
- Our proven track record in working with KiwiRail’s Digital Engineering team and understanding of their digital requirements
- Our knowledge of the Wellington Metro Area through working in the Wellington Region for over 15 years
- Our relationship-based model – ensuring we work within the clients organisation and tailoration of numerous rail features, turnout Point of Switch (POS), track alignment change, level crossing, platform, axle counter – just to name a few..) in order to carry out the detailed design of the system.
The integration project in itself is significant in scale. The ETCS Programme covers the entire Wellington Electrified Area (WEA) – approximately 105km of rail corridor. The programme is still in the early stages of procurement, however, the Vitruvius scope of work requires early involvement focussed on de-risking the design, estimation and construction phases of the works by developing a digital twin of the rail corridor. The ETCS System will require sthe installation of lineside infrastructure throughout the network in the form of new Combined Services Route (CSR) ducting, balises and cabling, as well as radio network upgrades to facilitate Global System for Mobile Communications-Rail (GSM-R) communication. This means needing to access nearly every part of the corridor during the physical works. Ensuring we have a detailed representation of KiwiRail’s existing infrastructure ready for interrogation prior to the design commencing will ensure that key risks are identified and mitigated early, and that scope can be detailed thoroughly, ensuring there are no surprises once the build commences.
Furthermore, ETCS L2 system requires a detailed understanding of the exact location of numerous rail features (turnout Point of Switch (POS), track alignment change, level crossing, platform, axle counter – just to name a few..) in order to carry out the detailed design of the system. The integration project we are embarking on is endeavouring to digitise all of this information and ensure it can be used by the successful supplier for the system design.
The digital twin project will firstly focus on the installation of a master survey control network for the WEA, before ‘filling in the blanks’ of areas where we do not currently possess point cloud survey data. Once we have the entire WEA scanned, the focus will turn to the extraction of the key model features, including the required asset data.
The potential for what this data can be used for from an asset management perspective are significant and extends beyond the scope of the ETCS Programme. It is a really exciting time for the Wellington Metro and we are privileged to be involved.
