The technology that could break the rail unions – The Telegraph

The fiercely resisted greater use of automation is a core plank of Network Rail's reforms
London commuters from Littlehampton and Worthing, West Sussex, beleaguered from a year of rail strikes, were dealt a fresh blow shortly after 7.30am on the Tuesday before Christmas.
Network Rail announced a broken rail had been found on their route. “We’re sorry to say we’ve had to block the line until it can be replaced,” Network Rail tweeted, before publishing a picture of the fault.
Rarely one to pass on an opportunity to push its agenda, the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers union (RMT) seized on the tweet as evidence of the evils of planned reforms to working practices on the railways.
“Top work by the Network Rail team that discovered this hairline crack in a rail last night,” the trade union responded. “This is precisely the type of incident that could be missed if Network Rail cut their scheduled maintenance tasks by 50pc.”
⚠️🛤️ Our team found a broken rail between #PrestonPark and #Hove last night, so we’re sorry to say we’ve had to block the line until it can be replaced.@SouthernRailUK Littlehampton to Victoria via Worthing trains cannot run today – they have travel advice for passengers. /1
Passengers across the UK have suffered as the RMT and other unions strike in a row over pay and working conditions. A total of seven days have been lost to nationwide industrial action in the worst dispute of its type for a generation.
Although the focus has been on pay demands, the standoff is as much – if not more – about sweeping reforms to day-to-day operations.
Network Rail, the public body that is responsible for tracks, signals and stations, and train operators must find around £2bn of annual savings – savings that can be realised by changes to what some claim are “archaic working practices”.
Greater use of technology, popular on the Continent but fiercely resisted by all-powerful trade unions in the UK, is a core plank of the reforms.
To find faults on the line rail workers “walk the track on a regular basis – often at night – to identify problems and abnormalities”, according to Nick Smith, chief executive Cordel, an AIM-quoted company that specialises in automated infrastructure.
However, Mick Lynch, the RMT’s general secretary, says relying on technology such as artificial intelligence would make the railways “less safe than they are now”.
Nevertheless, Network Rail has already begun laying the foundations that will make many of the union-championed working practices unnecessary. Earlier this year it chartered an aeroplane to film Britain’s 20,000 miles of track and 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts.
On board was technology that could, for instance, look at trackside vegetation. Bosses are now able to pinpoint not only the various species of trees, but their age and therefore the likelihood that their branches could fall onto the tracks.  
Ash dieback, which is killing swathes of UK trees, is a particular problem. Through its technology, Network Rail now knows that there are 400,000 ash trees that pose a threat to train services because of the implementation of this technology, for instance.
Industry sources explain Hungerford Bridge, which links the south bank of the River Thames with trains into Charing Cross Station, is another example of where money can be saved – as well as reducing disruption to services.
The 19th Century crossing requires physical inspection every five years, according to rail engineers.
“We have to do a full examination of that structure, which requires people to scaffold over the  Thames,” says one. The project is so mammoth that it even requires divers to be stationed in the waters below in case of an incident.
The person adds: “It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of people, it’s very costly.”
“But we’ve now started using drones, with laser scanning capability.”
So-called “ground-penetrating radar” is able to detect defects in the bridge and the railway. Drones can also be used on tunnels as well as bridges.
“A drone gets you away from sometimes laying out scaffolding for a whole weekend, or for two or three weekends in a row,” the person adds. “It depends on the length and size of the tunnel or the bridge, but it’s able to do it probably about 10 times quicker than a human.”
Cordel fits existing passenger trains with smart sensors, GPS tracking and light detection and ranging technology. The latter, known as LiDAR, creates 3D images by firing laser beams. Similar scanner technology is being used for driverless cars to allow the vehicle to “see” its surroundings.
Smith says: “It means the same section of track can be checked multiple times per day, a significant improvement from manual inspections, which are less frequent.  Ultimately, issues can be detected earlier, and better maintenance planning can be carried out, preventing faults that cause delays.
“We can reduce the need for people to walk the tracks for inspections, looking for problems. Instead, issues can be detected as trains go up and down the tracks from the safety of a computer back in the office.”
He estimates that railways worldwide spend around half of their maintenance budgets on inspections and the other half doing the work.
The savings could be substantial. Network Rail spent around £13.1 billion operating, maintaining, renewing, and enhancing the national rail infrastructure in the year to March 2022, according to regulator the Office of Rail and Road.
Smith adds: “By reducing the spending on inspection, more can be spent on maintenance. Rather than workers doing inspections they can be redeployed to work on maintenance.
“One advantage of our technology is that the AI learns and tunes itself over time. It gets better at spotting problems as more and more data is collected from the sensors and other kit. By reallocating resources towards more efficient maintenance, not only will the railways be able to function more productively and efficiently, but customers can also expect faster journeys with fewer delays.”
Lynch is not convinced. “We will move to risk-based maintenance rather than planned preventative maintenance. So they’re saying: ‘Wait till it breaks and see what happens’,” he told reporters at a press conference in early December. “And if that train comes off the rails at 140mph with 900 people on it, they might say: ‘But we did save a few million quid during the 2022 pay dispute.’”
However well-founded Lynch is open to claims that he is stressing safety concerns to retain the status quo. Fewer in-person inspections means fewer rail workers – and, in turn,fewer RMT members.
As UHF Satcom, a website run by radio enthusiasts, tweeted its response to the cracked line between Preston Park and Hove: “AI [artificial intelligence] and ML [machine learning] solutions won’t need unions.”
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