Issue 3
With ARRB’s transition to the NTRO, an emphasis has been placed on outreach beyond Australia and New Zealand, alongside an expansion of focus across the transport sector; beyond roads and into rail, ports and airports. To represent NTRO Rail internationally, Donald Shackleton from NTRO’s Asset Performance team ventured to South Korea in early 2023. Following his travels, Donald recounted the trip and the insights he gained from the experience via a recorded interview. This article provides a written account of this interview.
I had the opportunity to travel to South Korea on behalf of NTRO to attend the International Union of Railways' (UIC) April training session for the Asia-Pacific region. The Korean Railway Corporation (KoRail) is one of their key partners and is responsible for organising this series of training sessions. As someone with a background in the more abstract field of mathematics, I was eager to learn more about the practical elements of the rail industry, as I have done with roads through my work at NTRO. This trip provided the perfect opportunity for me to do so.
During my visit to KoRail, I was fascinated by the extensive research and development work KoRail carries out. The speakers from KoRail shared with us information about various R&D projects they have been working on, and some of them stood out for me. For instance, they have developed a semi-automated system that enables railway maintenance workers to make their presence known to trains. This system is integrated into the wider signalling system and when workers are on the track ahead, the train driver gets alerted to slow down. It is centred around geolocation of a tablet or other handheld device with a specialised software package installed. Another impressive project is the drone bridge inspection system that they have developed. They use a van to deploy the drones, which then fly out a predefined circuit and return with detailed visual and GPS information. This method is more efficient and effective than using human inspectors, as the drones can detect minute changes in the bridge structure that are not visible to the human eye. For example, the bridge may have shifted by half a centimetre since the previous inspection, which a comparison of drone surveys can easily detect but a human inspector cannot. Overall, I was impressed by the level of innovation at the Korean Railway Corporation.
As for my personal experience of the South Korean public transport system, I found it fast, clean and easy to navigate, even though I don't speak any Korean. I was able to catch a train to and from the airport without any trouble. I also got to see the transport system from two perspectives: the customer-facing side and the operational side. The control rooms at the stations emphasised the importance of both train and human safety. One such control room had cameras that could detect if anyone was on or too close to the tracks. In such cases, an alert would be sent and a warning would be played over the nearby speakers, asking people to clear the tracks. During our visit, we were given a tour of the country's control room, which was truly impressive. The room takes up most of the building it is in and resembles a major Area Control Centre, such as that for the Melbourne Flight Information Region. A large monitor wraps around the room, displaying the signalling status for every track in Korea. It's amazing to see so much information centralised in one place in real time.
Furthermore, the Railway Federation's Asia Pacific region covers a wide range of countries, extending from the Caucasus through to Australia. Representatives from various countries such as Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia and Australia attended the event, with most attendees being from railway regulators or operators. The representation was comprehensive, providing an excellent opportunity to meet people from different countries. It was especially insightful to meet representatives from Kazakhstan and Mongolia, who mentioned facing similar challenges to ours in Australia, due to their countries' sparse populations. In their countries, as in ours, it can be very challenging to justify building railway infrastructure where the population density is low. This was interesting because it wasn't something that would immediately come to my mind when thinking about railways in these countries.
In addition to the training, the overall trip was enjoyable. The organizers from KoRail were very helpful in guiding us throughout the trip and making sure we had things to do after the conference. On one such outing, they arranged for us to visit Gyeongbokgung palace complex and suggested that we rent hanbok for the occasion, which is the traditional Korean dress. As a result, there is a photograph of all of the attendees in Korean traditional dress standing alongside the KoRail staff in standard business attire in the palace courtyard. It was a fantastic experience.
Attending UIC training sessions such as this one on rail safety is something I highly recommended, especially to colleagues, as NTRO expands its presence in the rail industry. These sessions provide the opportunity to discuss the challenges faced in the railway space in our country and in other countries across the Asia-Pacific region. The focus of this particular session was safety, which prompted us to delve into the safety concerns specific to rail transportation and in future may lead to identifying ways to improve. By attending such sessions, we can explore ways to enhance safety measures and find solutions to the problems faced by the railway industry.
