As a safety engineer for the last 30 years I am used to working within specified limitations. As technology has developed over the last decades, we have managed to improve capacity to a point where these self-imposed industry limitations are now the main constraint on throughput. There has been no serious accident on London Underground since 1975 (Moorgate) and on Network Rail since 2007 (Grayrigg) but will re-assessing these constraints affect the safety of our transport systems and make our journeys less safe? More importantly are we “too safe” at the moment and by revisiting these constraints will we increase (albeit slightly) the risk of an accident, but at the same time reduce the overcrowding and congestion on our roads and thus from a “system” view actually improve safety?This event has been facilitated by the Transport Sector and involves the Safety, Railway, Aerospace and Automotive and Road Transport TPNs. As we are seeing that innovation is no longer constrained by the industry it is important that these type of events take place so that the engineers in the various disciplines can share knowledge and network. This has to be the future of the Sectors and TPNs in the IET
Everywhere we go, we see that transport capacity is at a maximum (roads, air, railways). We regularly hear of over-crowded trains, long queues and slow journeys by car and flight traffic delays due to capacity issues. Innovation and technology has given us as much capacity as possible, but without some thinking “outside the box” we are always going to be pushing the limits of capacity with the obvious consequence of major perturbation following even the smallest incident.
Blog by Peter Sheppard, Chairman, Transport Sector Panel