Automatic Mapping Of The Railway

The aim of this Network Rail project is to automatically create a signalling plan using asset position data. The route chosen for the pilot project is Newcastle to Carlisle. The signalling plan we create contains:

• Three ELR's
• Crossovers, loops and junctions
• Twenty-nine asset types
• Vector and raster mapping from Ordnance Survey Great Britain
• Multiple scales
• Datum distances
• Compatibility with [http://www.westsig.co.uk/PageBase.aspx?puid1200 Westinghouse PLANS] and Balfour Beatty PLANS software

Our system needs the longitude and latitude of track centre line and asset coordinates.

[http://www.omnieng.co.uk/ Omnicom Engineering] collect the data by sending a train containing inertial measurement, GPS positioning control system and several or more digital video cameras along the track at line speed. The spatially referenced video is manually analysed using OmniSurveyor3D® to record asset positions.

We receive the data in CSV (comma separated value) files containing the latitude and longitude of the track and the assets. We can examine these files in a spreadsheet program.

[http://www.bentley.com Bentley] MicroStation is the graphics engine for our software. We create a new, empty project and then our importer to create geographic representations of the track centre lines and assets.

This is a geographic view of the level crossing at Bardon Mill. You can see two track centre lines, a single route centre lines and four asset markers representing the level crossing.

This is the same level crossing with aerial photography turned on.

We store information about every asset.

And we can also view digital images. The one below was captured by OmniSurveyor3D®, but the images could come from any source.

We can create a signalling plan for any part of the route. First we choose the area we want the signalling plan to cover. Then we choose the scale (or scales) of the signalling plan. The image below shows the boundary of a signalling plan covering about 2km of track at a scale of 1:000.

We create a signalling plan by clicking on the signalling plan boundary. You don't have to do anything else. The signalling plan is created automatically. The image below shows the extents of the 2km section at Bardon Mill.

We can see a bit more detail if we zoom in.

And still more detail.

The signalling plan is created 'in-synch' with the geographic representation so you can slide the cursor up and down the track in the signalling plan and see where you are in the geographic (and vice versa).

The image below is a more complicated area. As well as a junction the signalling plan contains three sections drawn at different scales.

The signalling plan looks like this:

System Capabilities

• Import Track Centre Line data from CSV files containing longitude/latitude and/or British National Grid (BNG) coordinates. The file name indicates the ELR and TRID, for example NEC2-2100.csv.

• Import Asset Information from CSV files containing longitude/latitude and/or British National Grid (BNG) coordinates. Each asset is coded. For example S3 is an AWS magnet and T6 is a quarter milepost. Some assets have additional and/or related information. For example the four points representing a level crossing all share the same level crossing name.

: NOTE: The system can import data from any source that provides data in the specified CSV format.

• The system stores data in XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Storing information in XML files makes it easy to exchange information with other systems. See XML Databases Spreadsheets for more opinions on this matter.

• Create a Route Centre Line (RCL) from one or more tracks.

• Calculate distances using the RCL and any datum.

• Perform measurements in imperial and/or metric units across datums and ELR's.

• Perform measurements in the signalling plan across changes of scale.

• Create any number of signalling plans from a single geographic file.

• No practical limit on the size of signalling plan. For example we can create a single signalling plan at 1:100 of the entire route from Newcastle to Carlisle.

• Show crossovers, junctions, loops and twenty-nine assets types on the signalling plan.

• Rescale any part of the signalling plan in seconds.

• Create PLANS compatible signalling plans using standard Network Rail cell libraries.

• View asset information and associated images/documents in the geographic and the signalling plan.

• Create height profiles.

• Create virtual gradient boards at any location.

Development Statistics

• Automatic Mapping of the Railway (a.k.a. SMDI2) is project number 0892.
• Development was spread over a period of about four months and took approximately 120 person days to complete.
• The system is written in a combination of MicroStation Development Language (MDL) and 'C' and runs on MicroStation V8.
• The MicroStation component is called NR31.MA and contains 42745 lines of code (excluding libraries).
• The MDL libraries used are: AD01, COOR, SHP0, EL01, GNRL, SCN0, TIDA and WP53.
• The pure 'C' component is called NR30.DLL and contain 7785 lines of code (excluding libraries).
• The 'C' libraries used are: DBG0, REC0, STR1, XM01, XML0 and ZLIB.