The Global Light Rail Awards celebrates excellence and innovation within the global light and urban rail sectors – Wednesday 5 October 2022
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600 guests from across the rail industry celebrate an evening of innovation and growth. Over 150 rail industry manufacturers, suppliers and service providers will be represented at the seventh Dinner at the Roundhouse
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Mainspring’s LRT Excellence Days enhance understanding and co-operation between the teams responsible for the day-to-day operation and maintenance of the light and urban rail systems, those with procurement responsibility and the supply chain.
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The 16th Annual UK Light Rail Conference and exhibition brings together over 250 decision-makers for two days of open debate covering all aspects of light rail operations and development.
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Forward-thinking 21st Century cities are enjoying a transport revolution. More and more are choosing fixed-infrastructure transport solutions to provide a backbone for growth, creating cleaner and less congested environments and increased accessibility to employment, housing and leisure activities for all.
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A marketing strategy brings everything together. Without one you waste time and money and going round in circles.
Knowing that you don’t know is one thing. Not knowing what you don’t know is worse…
Similar to good event management, a crucial element of business development is planning and attention to detail.
Corporate communication is a key element in your content marketing plan. It drives the consistent messages, both internally and externally, you wish to convey.
Of the many elements you need to get right in running an event, tight organisation is arguably the most important. Once the objective of the event has been established, you can’t afford to leave any stone unturned in the planning, organisation and execution.
Figuring out what your clients value, developing your offer accordingly and delivering the right and consistent message to them at the right time.
Whether you’re supplying editorial or taking up one of our standard or bespoke advertising packages, we take your messages to the people that need to hear them through a choice of publishing channels.
The LRT Monitor brings the facts, figures and contacts together in one place, so now it’s easy to search, find and get the information you need.
Now in its 84th year, Tramways & Urban Transit is unique as a publication founded on the needs of scheme promoters, transport operators, planners, consultants, manufacturers and campaigners for better public transport in our congested towns and cities.
As a well-established mark of excellence, a Light Rail Award adds immediate cachet to your organisation
Read articleNew Edinburgh City Council Chief Executive Andrew Kerr has supported the idea of extending the city’s controversial tram project to Newhaven
Read articleAhead of his presentation at the 12th Annual UK Light Rail Conference, Dr Stuart Thomson considers the vital, and often overlooked role, of stakeholder engagement.
Read articleThe UK's first tram-train arrives in Sheffield just weeks after the tram-train pilot was granted
Read articleTram-Pro takes tram driver training simulation to the next level. Innovative and dynamic with state of the art graphics and powerful analysis tools it has transformed the way, and the time, that training is conducted resulting in a robust, cost effective outcome.
Read articleAhead of his presentation at the 12th Annual UK Light Rail Conference, Dr Stuart Thomson considers the vital, and often overlooked role, of stakeholder engagement.
Read articleThroughout 2016, not a month went by without the announcement of a new driver-less automobile trial or a new record claim. The world seems to be embracing the technology to create autonomous vehicles, with all the big names you’d expect present and correct.The race is on!
Read articleWith potentially devastating disruption seen across both public and private networks in May, Kevin Bell from Bond Dickinson examines some of the threats to transport systems.
Read articleHead of Operations for Greater Manchester, Alex Cropper, told the conference attendees that Manchester’s key focus is to reduce their carbon footprint and generate cleaner air by reducing the number of cars on the road by 10% by 2035. As part of this solution, the city’s aims to improve the Metrolink within Manchester, with a key focus on improving safety and minimising incidents as part of this strategy. Currently Metrolink are ranked within the top 5 light rail services in Europe but the city has big plans to move this into the top 3 within the next few years.
Similarly, the Thames gateway which stretches from Canary Wharf in London to Southend in Essex experiences over 50 million vehicles per year travelling on their roads. Managing Director Gordon Pratt of Thames Gateway Tramlink is focusing on offering light rail solutions to resolve these problems as the transport infrastructure is poor and air pollution is very high.
As well as the challenges facing the cities the conference also provided insight into some of the innovative solutions that are being offered for light rail.
I spoke about how developmental competence management is the future for light rail to improve the performance of drivers, improve visibility and confidence for light rail operators, to reduce incident rates and eliminate a lot of the costs from light rail business. I also shared insights into how Tram Operations Limited are using the platform. Andy Wallace from Tram Operations Ltd said following their experience, “The level of dynamic risk is greater on a tramway than on heavy rail. Trams operate in both segregated and mixed traffic environments and as such our drivers find their trams regularly surrounded by pedestrians, cars and bicycles. We use the national occupational standards to evaluate our driver performance, but we wanted to strengthen our risk controls and felt electronic competence management was the right solution for our organisation.”
We also heard from UKTram who are focused on sharing best practice across the industry and are actively involved in proactively identifying innovative solutions for the industry on behalf of their members. David Keay and Laura Reardon shared some insights into the work they are doing with the heads of safety to develop a risk model that integrates with ORR RM3 processes. This has already been rolled out on Manchester Metrolink and is now being scheduled for 8 other regions.
Industry consultant Ian Rowe shared the findings of their latest report which looked at solutions to ‘reduce the likelihood of serious accidents due to tram drivers becoming inattentive because of fatigue or other effects’. They have explored technologies such as wearables, facial recognition and task monitoring. Perclos (or facial recognition systems) was identified as the most effective solution. The next steps are to undertake controlled lab testing via a simulator in partnership with TramPro. We look forward to hearing the final results.
All in all it was an excellent conference, well organised and a great spread of attendees.
Author:
Sally Brinkley is Operations Director of AssessTech, a technology and training company specialising in all aspects of Competence Management for the Railway Industry (both Light Rail and Heavy Rail).
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