Victorian railway signalling should be scrapped in favour of digital train control systems to improve service reliability and allow more trains to use routes at relatively low cost, delegates to a rail conference heard on Thursday.

Network Rail’s digital transformation director Patrick Bossert told the UK Rail Industry Forum that nearly half of all problems on the railway are down to signalling system failures. By upgrading the infrastructure “reliability will improve by at least 35%” he claimed.

He added that digital train control could enable up to 40% more capacity on busy routes, negating the need to build additional track. “The potential is significant,” he said.

Mr Bossert told the audience in London that “digital capacity is what will unlock the latent potential of the railway”. Currently a big limiter is signalling control, he added. “We use a Victorian block signalling system which only allows one train into a section when the preceding train has left that ‘block’.

“At least half of the railway is vacant and yet we say the railways are full and there is no room. If we take away the constraint of red / amber / green lights and signalling blocks and close up headways and run trains much closer together using digital technology we have the potential to exploit a lot more of existing network instead of having to building new.”

He added that digital control systems can make railways bi-directional, allowing trains to be routed around sections of track closed for maintenance. Trains could also be run in parallel, he said. “The potential for what we can do with railways once signalling has gone digital is enormous.”

Photo courtesy of Network Rail