Big data and the virtuous circle of railway digitization

Abstract

Presently there are many disruptive technologies and philosophies that will change the way we learn from accidents and carry out safety management on the railway. These ideas and technologies include Big Data, Safety II, the Digital Railway, and Simulation. These have all come to the fore in the last 5 years or so to produce a potential virtuous circle that will provide significant synergy between them. This offers all railway stakeholders emergent opportunities including greater safety, better system reliability and efficiency. This paper is concerned with railway safety and how it has improved over many years, yet requires new thinking to get further gains. A Big Data Analytics approach is described using the ELBowTie tool and the type of data available. Analytics are discussed and how a digital railway will provide a backbone for this based upon an Internet of Things architecture. Simulation and the use of digital information is discussed and how this can close the virtuous circle.