Using systems engineering to modernise a complex heavy rail system
What do we want from our modern railway networks? Appropriate capacity – reduced and more consistent journey times – quick recovery from unavoidable disruption.
The trouble is these are not easy objectives to achieve when a complex system was built and expanded on over many years.
The Sydney rail heavy network is such a system and is currently undergoing a significant and impressive program of modernisation.
The Shoal Transport and Infrastructure Team is working with Transport for New South Wales (TfNSW) on their Digital Systems Program (DSP) which will transform Sydney’s rail network to create high capacity turn-up-and-go services to meet growing demand.
The following paper, presented at the Conference on Rail Excellence (CORE) 2021, shares the experience of applying modern system engineering techniques to understand and manage complexity on DSP.
The authors are:
- Donovan Roodt, Shoal Group Pty Ltd
- Malaeka Nadeem, Transport for New South Wales
- Lam-Thien Vu, Shoal Group Pty Ltd
