Network Rail is trialling new technology as it looks to develop the UK’s first-ever drone assured navigation and safety system for its 20,000 miles of railway tracks and infrastructure.
The railway operator said that its existing response processes will be enhanced by drones operated beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS), helping it to “significantly” speed up the verification and interception of trespassers, reducing train down-time and also “potentially saving lives.”
The move comes after there were more than 18,500 recorded incidents of trespass across the rail network in England, Wales, and Scotland last year. Trespassing causes delays on the network, with the total performance delay costs associated with trespass and vandalism estimated at £55million per year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The drone technology is currently being trialled along the Wolverhampton and Severn Valley, with Network Rail saying that it has already proved its potential to improve the safety, speed, and efficiency of the UK railway service.
The drones fly alongside railways in ‘safety corridors’, similar to aeroplanes, using an advanced ‘Digital Tethering’ concept to ensure the safety of the aircraft’s flight behaviour and minimise risk.
Network Rail said that the Digital Tethering system uses a navigation solution including artificial perception and highly accurate ground-based beacons, which together facilitate autonomous navigation with real-time and precise position of the drones, particularly in areas along the railway where GPS/GNSS signals are unstable or inaccessible.
They are able to monitor the UK’s railways, transmitting visual data in real time to operators for detection and monitoring of trespassers.
Network Rail has partnered with independent drone advisors, Drone Major Limited on the trial. The company has received record approval from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to fly small drones along the railway.
The company said that the new technology will significantly reduce the £1.9 billion spent every year on monitoring for infrastructure issues and other external problems, such as animals on the line, collapsed trees, and lineside fires.
Network Rail’s programme manager for national drone strategy Dominic Mottram said that the potential for the drone projects to facilitate a more reliable and safer railway could be a “game-changer”.
“We operate one of the safest railways in the world, but it is also one of the busiest, so keeping trains running reliably while monitoring tracks and dealing with incidents can be a challenge and delays can spread quickly and far from the original source,” added Mottram. “Information provided by drones will mean our colleagues’ expertise in maintaining the railway can be focussed where it is needed, without exposing them to the risk of the ‘live railway’, and instances of trespass can be tackled much more quickly.”
