Institution news
Q: Please could you briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regard to improving ride quality on the railway and this event?
Bridget Eickhoff (BE): My area of interest is vehicle-track interaction and vehicle approvals so I’ve been involved in work on ride comfort and the related standards for many years.
Julian Stow (JS): As a vehicle dynamics engineer, ride comfort has always been an important part of my job, whether from the point-of-view of ensuring vehicles are safe, specifying new fleets or ensuring that new track layouts don’t cause problems. Most recently, I have led the development of the University of Huddersfield’s rail vehicle motion simulator THOMoS (Train Hi-fidelity Onboard MOtion Simulator). This has been specifically designed to study passenger comfort and allows us to put human subjects in a highly customisable environment and gather feedback in a cost-effective manner.
Q: What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for applying research to improve ride comfort and quality in new and existing rolling stock?
BE: It is very difficult to specify ride comfort as it is a combined property of the vehicles and the track together, rather than of either individually. It requires a coordinated approach across the interface to produce a good ride.
JS: In my view the key roadblock is a commercial one rather than an engineering one. As engineers we have a pretty comprehensive toolbox for designing trains-track systems which provide excellent comfort. Unfortunately, the commercial driver to do so – and I am particularly talking about train design here – hasn’t been as clear. As a result, the extent to which passenger comfort is benchmarked or specified often depends on the engineering team involved and can become a victim of commercial pressures.
Q: What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's seminar?
BE: How to align incentives across the different industry players to achieve good ride comfort when each party is only incentivised to achieve minimum standards compliance, and this may not adequately manage the complex interface.
JS: I hope we will discuss how to ensure that passenger comfort is given sufficiently high priority in the design and procurement of new fleets together with cost-effective means of improving existing ones where problems exist. I also hope to hear how technology can be applied to improve the vehicle-track system as a whole for the benefit of passengers.
Q: What would you say are the technologies or applications to watch for the future?
BE: It is already possible to use a smart phone to make ride measurements – what capabilities can we expect next?
JS: It probably depends how far into the future we want to look. In the short term there are benefits from better track geometry maintenance, improved vehicle specifications and increased focus on optimising suspension designs. In the longer-term active suspensions offers some interesting benefits, particularly for lateral ride improvement.
Q: Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme or at the event?
JS: I am interested in the speakers presenting on the challenges in vehicle ride and in particular the effect of some key trade-offs. I am also looking forward to understanding more about the track maintenance technologies that may improve geometry in the future.
Q: Why is it important for engineers to join this event?
BE: Providing good ride comfort is key role of railways and it’s important that engineers understand the issues around this.
JS: If railways are to remain a competitive mode of transport, passenger comfort needs to have much greater importance than it does at present. Engineers working in this area need to understand what can be done, and how best to implement these changes.
The Improving Passenger Comfort: Why we need good trains and sound track seminar will be taking place on 5 July 2023 at One Birdcage Walk, London. To book your place, please visit the event website.