{"id":450993,"date":"2026-06-10T19:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/railuk.com\/?p=194514"},"modified":"2026-06-10T21:48:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:48:06","slug":"doing-more-with-less-building-and-operating-a-more-affordable-railway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=450993","title":{"rendered":"Doing more with less: building and operating a more affordable railway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

year\u2019s event to demonstrate how technology can help create a better performing railway at a lower cost.<\/p>\n

Helen Davis, director of strategy and business development at Siemens Mobility, Rail Infrastructure, UK & Ireland, outlines how this thinking will shape the company\u2019s conversations with customers at the show.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s keeping your customers awake at night when it comes to costs on the railway?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I talk to customers, operational and maintenance costs are right at the top of the list. The railway is managing an enormous volume of equipment and infrastructure, much of it geographically dispersed, ageing, and increasingly complex. Keeping all of that running efficiently and reliably, while controlling costs and responding to more extreme weather conditions, gets harder every year.A <\/p>\n

significant part of the pressure comes from labour intensive processes: manual calculations and processes to operate the railway; regular site inspections; repeated site visits; and reactive fault response. These activities are essential, but they\u2019re time consuming, expensive, and often inefficient. The question many customers are asking is: how do we take cost out of the system without compromising safety or performance?<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

What new thinking is Siemens Mobility bringing to Rail Live 2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re bringing some fresh thinking on how to reduce the cost of operating the railway, starting with re imagining how it is operated and maintained.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest opportunities we see is using the existing asset base to enable better connected decisions at a system level.
It requires reliable cybersecure connectivity and we\u2019ll be showcasing technology that can enable that today. Once that connection is in place, it opens the door to more intelligent monitoring of assets and better insight into what genuinely needs attention. Instead of reacting to everything, the whole cost base begins to shift: fewer unnecessary site visits, better prioritised interventions, and more productive use of skilled people.<\/p>\n

At Rail Live, we\u2019ll be sharing our thinking and experience from pilots we\u2019ve run over the last few years, showing how these approaches can help create a network that is cheaper to run every day, not just marginally more efficient.<\/p>\n

Another major opportunity is using technology to take labour intensive manual processes from people, so they can focus more of their time on making judgements and decisions. This is particularly relevant when it comes to perturbation recovery.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be sharing some of our latest innovations that can shoulder repetitive or arduous calculations, for everyone from signallers to maintainers, helping them do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.<\/p>\n

Siemens Mobility is well known for signalling. Will you be bringing anything new in this area to Rail Live 2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just last year, our ETCS Level 2 signalling system went into operation on the Northern City Line \u2013 the first \u2018signals away\u2019 railway to operate in the UK. The team which delivered that project will be at Rail Live, sharing their experiences from this cutting-edge deployment.
We\u2019ll also be talking about how ETCS Level 2 can be deployed more flexibly in future. We know deployment can be challenging, but we have developed new solutions to enable it to be delivered more cost effectively across Britain.<\/p>\n

What we think will surprise customers is the ability to realise benefits incrementally, rather than needing the whole of the ETCS delivered in one go before any value is seen. This approach also has the potential to shorten installation times and reduce costs.<\/p>\n

We all recognise the potential cost saving of moving signal aspects into the cab with ETCS. Fewer signal heads and lineside cabinets mean fewer points of failure, lower maintenance demand, and reduced whole life cost. But the question we\u2019ll be answering at Rail Live is: \u201cHow do we accelerate deployment of ETCS, so the industry can start enjoying these cost savings sooner?\u201d<\/p>\n

Electrification remains a challenge for the industry. How does this feature in your thinking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an area where the industry has learned some hard lessons. Traditional approaches can be expensive, disruptive, and slow to deliver, yet the need to electrify the railway to improve performance, efficiency, and sustainability hasn\u2019t gone away.<\/p>\n

At Rail Live, we\u2019ll be pointing towards alternative ways of thinking about electrification, for example how we can accelerate the use of electric trains without necessarily electrifying entire routes with overhead lines. This kind of thinking reduces infrastructure complexity, minimises disruption, and improves affordability, without compromising operational outcomes.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

What can be done to make renewals and enhancements more affordable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Rail Live, we\u2019ll be sharing ideas and solutions including on one of the biggest opportunities to reduce cost in renewals and enhancements: smarter approaches to surveying, design, and planning.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be showcasing new tools that can reduce over engineering, help avoid late surprises, and increase safety by reducing trackside exposure \u2013 all of which ultimately contribute to lower project costs.<\/p>\n

What do you hope visitors take away from the Siemens Mobility stand?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a lot to share about what we believe works \u2013 and what doesn\u2019t \u2013 when it comes to optimising railway operation. Some of our ideas may surprise people when they see how much they can reduce the cost of running the railway, and how much more affordable enhancements and renewals can be thanks to technological advancements.<\/p>\n

Our technical specialists, who have worked on these latest innovations, will be on the stand and are really looking forward to hearing about our customers\u2019 challenges, and sharing their thinking on where the biggest opportunities lie to reduce capital and operational costs.<\/p>\n

One thing I can guarantee is that people will leave with their heads buzzing with ideas.<\/p>\n

To speak to Siemens Mobility\u2019s team of experts about rail transformation, visit stand F2 on the main concourse at Rail Live 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Image credit: Siemens Mobility<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>year\u2019s event to demonstrate how technology can help create a better performing railway at a lower cost. Helen Davis, director of strategy and business development at Siemens Mobility, Rail Infrastructure, UK & Ireland, outlines how this thinking will shape the company\u2019s conversations with customers at the show. What\u2019s keeping your customers awake at night when [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8202,4856,16017,343,47,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-450993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-company-news","category-events","category-industry-news","category-infrastructure","category-rail-news","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=450993"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451050,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450993\/revisions\/451050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=450993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=450993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=450993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}