A new technology for more efficient railways
RePoint switch technology
The technology we rely on to switch trains between different tracks has been in use for more than 200 years and is a major cause of rail disruptions. Whenever a component part of the switch fails, trains grind to a standstill and engineers have to rush to fix them. In 2022-23, the UK’s 21,000 switches were responsible for around 14% of passenger delay costs, and despite being less than 5% of track miles, their maintenance cost amounts to around 20% of Network Rail’s annual maintenance budget. Similar challenges exist worldwide.
Engineers at the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) are bringing these systems into the 21st century, with cutting-edge track switch technology that has the potential to substantially cut delays and maintenance costs, and making train services more reliable.
The traditional switches guide trains from one track to another by sliding a pair of rails horizontally, and have a single point of failure, meaning that if one component fails, trains must stop. The new design, called Repoint, uses a different ‘lift and move’ mechanism, incorporating a “fault-tolerant” design inspired by aircraft control systems. It uses three motors, each capable of completing the switch on its own, so if one fails, the system can carry on operating as normal and engineers can make repairs when the train line is not in use.
Roger Dixon, a Professor of Control Systems Engineering at BCRRE, started developing the Repoint system at Loughborough University, and brought it with him to the University of Birmingham in 2018.
This technology could unlock capacity, which means a lot more people could travel by train, or a lot more freight could be transported by train. That also has environmental benefits.
Professor Dixon says he was drawn to the University of Birmingham because of BCRRE’s reputation as a home of rail innovation. “It is probably the best university in the UK to do this kind of work because of the really good relationship with industry,” he says.
He enrolled in the Medici training course in 2022, and credits Enterprise with supporting the commercialisation of his technology, which has been successfully demonstrated at full scale. “They were very enthusiastic about creating spin-outs and taking the next step into the enterprise world, and that was extremely encouraging for me,” Professor Dixon says. “Birmingham seems to be one of a small number of universities that's really engaged in developing this enterprise culture.”
Repoint team member Linxiao Li makes an adjustment to the full-scale model of the switch technology
Enterprise also supported Huayu Duan, a researcher on Professor Dixon’s team, as he applied last year for the ICURe programme, a pre-accelerator to help researchers explore the commercial potential of their ideas. ICURe funding allowed Dr Duan to travel to several international exhibitions, engage with industry and conduct market research. “As a researcher, I had never engaged with industry like that, and I got a lot of feedback that we had never thought about,” he says. “We learnt a lot from those conversations and made new connections. We had a lot of interest not just in our project, but in the Railway Research Centre more broadly.”
Progressing Repoint would require big civil engineering projects, and coordination between end users, regulatory authorities and suppliers, he adds: “What we learnt from the ICURe experience is we have to keep working with the end user first, so they will be the big attraction for the other stakeholders to bring this forward.” The Repoint team is now bidding for a further phase of ICURe funding following their success at the ICURe ‘options roundabout’.