Upgrading the world’s Oldest underground Metro – A Signalling Engineer’s View Mike Harvie, Head of Signalling, London Underground
Upgrading the world’s Oldest underground Metro – A
Signalling Engineer’s View
Mike Harvie, Head of Signalling, London Underground
TfL Rail & Underground: The network today
• 7 modes
• 15 lines
• Over 430 stations
• Over 1200km of
track
• 1.6 Billion
Passenger
Journeys/year
• Capital programme:
£1.6 Bn/year
1863
2013
Railway Infrastructure takes time to change
Upgrade plan
• Asset renewal: replacing life-
expired assets with modern
equivalent forms e.g.
conventional signalling to
CBTC
• Capacity: increasing network
peak capacity by 30% through
line upgrade programme: new
trains, track and signalling AND
• Stations: rebuilding busiest
stations: Tottenham Court
Road, Victoria, Bond Street,
Bank, Paddington; upgrading
others with CCTV and better
communication systems
Magnitude of demand – London Underground
4.8million
rail journeys take place every day across Rail &
Underground’s network
54percent
of all UK rail journeys are directly provided by Rail
& Underground, meaning we not only support
travel around London but also connections across
the country
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13
Demand (Passenger Journeys) Service Volume (Train KMs)
The TfL JourneyLine System Year
Docklands Light
Railway
Seltrac IS from 1995
Jubilee Line Seltrac IS – 30 tph 2011
Victoria Line Invensys DTG-R – 33tph 2011
Northern Line Seltrac IS – up to 30 tph 2014
Hammersmith & City
Line
Seltrac IS (Radio) – up to 32 tph 2022
Circle Line Seltrac IS (Radio) – up to 32 tph 2022
District Line Seltrac IS (Radio) – up to 32 tph 2022
Metropolitan Line Seltrac IS (Radio) – up to 32 tph 2022
Piccadilly Line In Tender phase – GoA3/4 TBC
Waterloo & City Line In Tender phase – GoA3/4 TBC
Central Line In Tender phase – GoA3/4 TBC
Bakerloo Line In Tender phase – GoA3/4 TBC
4LM
DTUP
What do we want ?
More capacity & Reduced journey times
11.1 min
9.6 min
Pre-upgrade Post-upgrade
Average journey time
Victoria line
We replaced trains and signalling to reduce the average journey time by 1 minute and 31 seconds
This saves the average commuter 11.5 hours
travelling time per year
15.4 min
13.8 min
Pre-upgrade Post-upgrade
Average journey time
Northern line
We replaced signalling to reduce the average
journey time by 1 minute and 37 seconds.
This saves the average commuter 12.2 hours
travelling time per year
We replaced signalling to reduce the average
journey time by 1 minute and 49 seconds.
This saves the average commuter 13.7 hours
travelling time per year
13.4 min 11.5
min
Pre-upgrade Post-upgrade
Average journey time
Jubilee line
Delivery – 2010 funding settlement
1969: World’s first Automatic RailwayNow: 650,000 passengers/day
• New 47 x 8 Car ’09TS Fleet with onboard signalling (supplied by Bombardier and Invensys)
• 43 Trains (Peak) – 31 Trains (Off-Peak)• First ATO-on-ATO upgrade in world• Power, depot and other enabling works
Victoria Line Upgrade Jubilee Line Upgrade2
1%
incr
ease
in c
ap
aci
ty
33
% in
crea
se in
ca
pa
city
• Thales S40 moving block ATO system
• 63 trains• 7th car
• Power, depot and many other enabling works
Changes to the railway
(Jubilee & Northern lines)
• Significant train wiring modifications
• In-cab displays introduced
• Trackside signals removed
• CBTC signage introduced
• Inductive loop on track bed
• Secondary train detection system
Jubilee line - planned migration
• Preliminary “dual-fitted area” (DFA) (J1)
• Original plan - 4 small migration stages (J2, J3, J4 & J5)
Original plan
Dual-Fitted Area
Purpose:
• Provide Train Operators with experience of driving
with the in-cab display
• Assist with evidence
to assure final system
Results:
• Identified several issues
– both technical and human factors
• Useful data obtained, but DFA software became
more diverged from the final product.
Jubilee line – final migration
• Preliminary “dual-fitted area” (DFA) (J1)
• Final implementation – 2 migration stages (J234 & J5)
Original plan
Final plan
Systems Testing on Jubilee line
• Partial line closures at weekends– Large number of them
– Inconvenienced large numbers of passengers on a
regular basis
– Not always used effectively
• equipment failures or software errors leading to
testing time being lost
• logistics planning issues
• some weekends ear-marked as available for testing
ended up being used for installation
• Different approach used on Northern line– (details to follow later in presentation)
Final commissioning dates
• DFA – March 2008
• J234 Revenue Service - 29th December 2010
• J5 Revenue Service – 26th June 2011
14
Jubilee reliability trends – first 2 years
Early
Days
Second
Phase
J5
Phase
Reliability
ImprovementOlympics Steady State
Realising the benefits
Key Lessons Learned• “One Team” approach
• Cost of on-railway testing
• Challenge of applying new technology to an existing railway with strong existing standards and operating principles. Need to ensure clear, early definition of:
- signalling principles- operational requirements
• Importance of Stakeholder engagement
• Technology challenges
• Challenge of large migration areas
• Reliability growth before and after commissioning
Northern Line – Growth and Demand
• Busiest line on the London
Underground network with
900,000 customers per day
• 6 branches – most complex
manually operated railway in
Europe
• 18.5% growth in demand in last
five years
Original Northern Line Infrastructure
• Fixed block signalling
up to 50 years old
• Controlled via program
machine architecture
from 1960s, including
hardwired control desks
• 106 trains (1995TS) with performance
downgraded to match old trains (1959TS)– 1.24 ms-2 acceleration (existing 0.9 ms-2)
• Circa 1000 people to be trained
Northern Line Closure Plan
Old plan (2010)
65 closures, 20 of which were full line
16 months of early closing
(Monday – Thursday)
New plan (2011)
16 closures, 8 of which are full line
6 partial line closures during Easter and Christmas
Sunday late starting from 08:30
Northern Line Migration Areas
• 6 migration areas planned
• Commissioned as planned (i.e. no combining of
areas as on Jubilee line)
• New Service Control Centre (covering whole line)
commissioned at same time as NMA1
Performance Monitoring:
Reliability Objective Groups - ROGs• Suite of tests carried out on parts of the system
prior to commissioning into service, typically
during normal traffic hours• ROG1 – train systems
• ROG2 – loops & wayside
• ROG3 – axle counters
• Provided proof that the installed system was
reliable and that identified issues had been fixed
prior to revenue service
• Success was measured against criteria generated
from the final system reliability requirements
ROG2 Output
Other tools
Virtual test trolley• Allows some basic
testing (signal
strength, loop layout,
etc.) without needing
a test train
• No need to keep
traction current on,
so easier access for
parallel activities
NMA1-6
Commissioning dates:
NMA1 – 17/02/2013, NMA2 – 21/06/2013, NMA3 – 25/10/2013,
NMA4 – 17/01/2014, NMA5 – 21/03/2014, NMA6 – 30/05/2014
Reliability
NL reliability – 28 day average (1st year)
27
NL reliability – 28 day average (2nd year)
28
Northern Line Upgrade:
In NumbersThe Project in Numbers
Assets
• 37 New SERs
• Appx 350 km of Loop Cable
• 2 Change Over Cubicles
• 14 Plate Racks
Testing Completed
• 3500 PICO Tests Cases
• 2350 LCT Test Cases
• 1550 Data Comms Test Cases
• 1020 PLC Test Cases
• 1600 VCC Test Cases
• 95 SMC Test Cases
How have we achieved this
• No significant Safety Incidents
• 32 Numbers of Project Gate Reviews
• 44 SRPs
• 39 Weekend closures/possessions
• 1000’s of hours of cancelled/
engineering hours
29
Realisation of Capacity doesn’t have to be painful
Latest Modernisation:
Transforming the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines
- Learning the Lessons
•Huge increase in capacity
Met 27% / Dist 24% / C&H 65%
•32tph in central section (27 now)
• 1395 cars: 15% more than now
• Air-conditioned trains, LU’s first
• Over 150 of 191 new trains delivered
• Major depot, power, platform
lengthening works
• Paddington-Farringdon is world’s
oldest underground railway (1863)
• Trains up to 50 years old (A Stock)
• Signalling - some parts from 1920s
• 1m+ passengers daily
• 26% of LU total
• Makes up 40% of LU network
Peak Capacity Increase
S ignalsS ignals
S ignals
Trains
Trains
Trains
Met27%
Dis tric t24%
C &H65%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
P eak c apac ity inc reas e delivered
Overview
Migration Plan:
• Consider risk• Start small• Supporting revenue
takes effort• No Cul-De-Sacs
Dedicated Test Track
Progress – Melton RIDC• The baseline configuration is based on
1xVCC and 2xSCSs with the target radios,
axle counters and tags installed trackside.
• The guideway is designed to exercise all train
modes to ensure that the vehicle interface is
fully tested prior to production and revenue
service, this is one of the lessons learnt from
JNUP.
• Dynamic testing with first prototype train
began in 2015 (less than 6 months from
contract award)
• Full system ATO testing has commenced
Migration Sequence
The Next Generation of Upgrades on the London Underground Network
• CBTC will remove the traditional signalling constraints
• CBTC will present latent capacity
• If not seen early, this will generate a further, post CBTC commissioning, series of further enhancements
• Jubilee Line 2 – targeting 36tph with additional trains
• Northern Line 2 – seeking to enhance its capacity by 10-15% with additional trains
• Victoria Line 2 – minor modifications underway to achieve 36tph (April 2017)
Realisation of Capacity - Again
Northern Line
>60% capacity
increase
+19,000 passenger
s per hour
Mid 2020s – New trains on Piccadilly line
Bakerloo line
•25% more capacity
• 8,000 additional passengers per hour
Central line
• 25% more capacity
• 12,000 additional passengers per hour
Waterloo & City line
• 50% more capacity
• 9,000 additional passengers/hour
The Next Generation of Line Upgrades
Conclusion
• London, like many cities is rapidly out-growing its
metro, demanding the highest capacity upgrades
in difficult brownfield sites.
• London Underground has learnt many lessons in
applying CBTC solutions.
• These lessons are being applied on its largest re-
signalling project yet.
• These lessons may also help you in your
challenges.
Questions?