UK Rail Network Achieves Geospatial Visual Integration

Laurence Rohter, Stirling Kimkeran

Abstract:	"A national railway infrastructure is by nature a complex and dynamic business environment, which is both regulated and highly visible within the political and public arena. Responsibility for operational and safety-related performance ultimately resides with the asset steward and as such, must be managed to the optimum levels of efficiency whilst delivering measurable levels of performance. Within this complex and dynamic environment, all opportunities for improvement through innovation must be actively pursued, investigated and, where appropriate, implemented to deliver tangible benefits in the pursuit of increased levels of safety, productivity and performance. This paper sets out to review and consider the specific innovation of inertial-based video surveys in relation to improving the visual and geospatial knowledge available to the custodians of the infrastructure, whilst maintaining their relationship with all levels of the rail transport industry. Since February 2000 a unique, geo-spatial digital imaging surveying system has been used to support the management of the 21,000 track mile(33,800km) British national network. Beginning in 2003 the system has been adopted as the core asset collection and design verification solution, surveying a substantial amount of the UK rail network annually. This cyclic arrangement provides Network Rail, the current owner/manager, with a consistent, current and accurate visual and positional record of their transport network environment whilst significantly reducing the requirement for potentially hazardous trackside excursions. This paper sets out to review and consider the specific innovation of inertial-based video surveys in relation to improving the visual and geospatial knowledge available to the custodians of the infrastructure, to all user levels. This paper also addresses the potential for extended virtual track inspection."
Published in:	Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2005) June 27 - 29, 2005 Royal Sonesta Hotel Cambridge, MA
Pages:	1151 - 1162
Cite this article:	Rohter, Laurence, Kimkeran, Stirling, "UK Rail Network Achieves Geospatial Visual Integration," Proceedings of the 61st Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation (2005), Cambridge, MA, June 2005, pp. 1151-1162.
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