Door Operation Assessment for Porterbrook

Background

DB ESG carried out an assessment for the rolling stock leasing company, Porterbrook Leasing, into the automatic selective door operation (ASDO) used on their Class 458 fleet. These 5-car units had ASDO fitted, because they were often required to run as 10-car sets to improve peak time capacity and some stations were unable to accommodate longer trains.  The system was based on the use of trackside beacons to determine which doors passengers could alight from.
As the fleet was to be moved to an alternative network and operator, DB ESG was asked to perform a technical assessment of either deployment of the current system, an alternative that utilised GPS, or a combination of the two.  This required not only rolling stock considerations, but also the potential to add additional equipment to the infrastructure.  The assessment considered both system performance suitability, as well as overall project risks.

Work undertaken

• Review of technical offerings – viability of solutions, reliability and maintenance implications,  as well as an overview of the operational limitations.
• The number of stations on the route to be considered was established, identifying those with a potential short platform risk, together with the number of track beacons required to operate both the existing and combination (beacon and GPS) systems.
• Evaluation and presentation of the solutions, including the pros and cons of implemention.
• High level cost analysis of installing any necessary beacons.
• A final assessment report.