Users, Community and Environment Background

Theme C: Users, Community and Environment researches ways of optimising the railway environment for the user without adverse intrusion on the non-user.

For long term viability, a rail system must attract and retain users by providing them with efficient, safe, cost effective and environmentally friendly services which satisfy door-to-door needs.  It must also meet increasingly stringent environmental criteria for non-users.  The transport of passengers and freight by rail must also be competitive with alternative forms of transport.  The DETR 10-year Transport Plan (2000) includes the delivery of improvements in service quality, including more modern and attractive trains.  Knowledge of human reaction to the environment is required in order to set high standards.  Inappropriate standards result in wasted money and poor passenger satisfaction: the consequences of non-optimum design are severe over the lifetime of rolling stock.

In the 10-year plan, the DTLR set targets for a 50% increase in passengers and an 80% increase in freight over 2000 levels.  The delivery of these targets will only be achieved with substantial infrastructure and other improvements which are focused on the needs of users.

Work carried out within the theme will initially focus on:

• understanding and enhancing passenger and driver confort and activities
• understanding and forecasting demand
• access and interchange for seamless journeys (freight and passengers)
• opportunities available from new integrated service concepts and location and communication technologies
• the future role of rail in a changing transport environment
• optimising options for prioritisation of engineering actions from the users' viewpoint

Passenger comfort depends on reactions to a combination of noise, vibration, the thermal environment and other factors.  Specifications of how environmental factors shuold be measured, evaluated and assessed in the railway environment are required.  There is currently very limited knowledge of the effects of the environment on the activities and comfort of pssengers and crew.  Economic optimisation of the passenger and crew environment is therefore not currently possible.

Part of the research within Theme C involves the use of a simulation facility capable of reproducing the ranges of noise, vibration and thermal conditions relevant to railway carriages.  The research will provide methods of measuring, evaluating and assessing the environment in railway carriages so as to identify passenger reaction (discomfort, interference with activities, motion sickness, safety) and means of minimising such adverse reactions.  The research will provide a body of expertise on all aspects of passenger comfort and activities.

All rail journeys, for both passengers and goods, involve interchange, with additional time and money costs which can make rail travel less attractive than road travel.  The development of a fundamental understanding of how the whole journey by rail may be made sufficiently attractive to retain users and attract new users is crucial to the future success of the railways.  Although the problem is unique to the railways, it must also include an understanding of the alternative competitive services.  A second principal objective of work in Theme C therefore involves improving understanding of access to, and egress from, the rail system by users, and the development of novel approaches to meeting whole journey needs.  The potential for new technologies, particularly those related to location and communication/tracking and tracing will also be considered as providing a base for innovation.

A potential traveller or shipper will make decisions based ona range of factors relating to the movement from an origin to a destination.  While improvements are made to the railways, changes will also be taking place on competing modes, particularly road.  The potential effects on rail use of the implementation of new Advanced Traffic Management systems and increasing driver support in more efficient and environmentally friendly cars and trucks must therefore be assessed for a range of policy and external scenarios.  Our research is assessing the most cost effective actions to meet user needs in a progressiev way so as best to balance supply, demand and expectation.

The theme is currently seeking to encourage further research on environmental topics.  The environmental concerns most urgently of interest to railways are the issues of diesel emissions and noise.  Research on the detail of noise engineering is being carried out under Theme A, as it is a wheel/trail interaction issue.  UK railways rely more than other European railways on diesel traction and, if transport is to shift towards greater use of rail, it is important that the railway's envirnmental advantage in pollution and the carbon economy be maintained and improved.  One longer term possibility is teh use of fuel cell technology and a research programme on the feasibility of fuel cell applications in teh railway industry.