Accurately predicting train dwell time is critical to running an effective and efficient service. With high-density passenger services, large numbers of passengers must be able to board and alight the train quicklyand within scheduled dwell times. Using a specially constructed train mock-up in a pedestrian movement laboratory, the experiments outlined in this paper examine the impact of train carriage design factors such as door width, seat type, platform edge doors and horizontal gap on the time taken by passengers to board and alight. The findings illustrate that the effectiveness of design features depends on whether there are a majority of passengers boarding or alighting. An optimum door width should be between 1.7 and 1.8 m. The use of a central pole and platform edge doors produced no major effects, but a 200 mm horizontal gap could increase the movement of passengers. There is no clear effect of the type of seats and neither the standbacks between 50, 300 and 500 mm. Further research will look for the relationship between the dwell time and the characteristics of passengers such as personal space.

When an industry with 100‐year history of silo‐based operational domains introduces widespread technological advancements, generating exponential numbers of new interfaces that cross organizational boundaries – how does it respond to this new risk? For the rail/transit industry, the answer has been to adopt a systems engineering approach to manage the risk! Tailoring an SE approach for application to a new commercial domain has had its challenges. These case studies contrast and compare applications of SE across rail/transit projects to evaluate risk reduction and other benefits realized. Explore results across projects differing in scale, goals and asset type as well as in SE management strategies applied. Can the transit industry reach consensus and establish common systems engineering best practices, process and approaches? What tactics are being employed to facilitate shift in the cultural mindset to manage new interfaces and integration demands?

This panel will examine whether it is practical or desirable to have a common approach to requirements management across the supply chain. Using the rail supply chain as the example, it will explore the different drivers, including: • How railway operators/agencies can minimize integration risk and reduce supplier risk through the bidding and award process -particularly in an age of global competition, where translation of languages and cultural differences add to the challenge of requirement interpretation? • How systems suppliers balance responsiveness to 'unique' sets of project requirements with their goal to standardize product development/product offerings? • What challenges both clients and suppliers face when seeking consensus on when system acceptance is attained? How do the perspectives on conducting systems verification & validation differ? How to overcome the reluctance of user stakeholders to transfer the system to operational service? This panel will bring representation from both clients (operators/agencies) and suppliers to compare and contrast approaches to requirements engineering -from developing concepts/eliciting user needs, managing requirements, verification & validation to system acceptance/turnover. Panelists will highlight changes in practices intended to improve interactions between clients and suppliers and particularly note areas that would benefit from further improvement. The panel will also look at the role Systems Engineers must play across the supply chain at various stages of the lifecycle. As well as comparing different practices and drivers in the transportation sector, this panel and the discussion it seeks to stimulate will provide a more general insight into the differences between client and supplier side approaches to systems engineering. The panel will provide an introduction to the different approaches to requirements engineering in a nontraditional sector, including requirements development, management, verification and validation. It also seeks to elicit insight into contrasting SE perspectives of clients/owners and suppliers and whether optimization can be achieved where the supply chain members must share varied roles and functions to apply SE across the entire requirements lifecycle. Come and joint us to debate and explore the dynamics within this sector's supply chain and how its approaches to requirements management compare or contrast with other sectors -where does best practice reside? What can be exchanged? BiographiesModerator Dr Jon Elphick, Head of Systems Engineering for Atkins' Rail Systems Consultancy, is highly respected as a professional systems engineer, with a track record of delivering customer value in complex and challenging environments. He has developed long-term relationships with a number of major organizations, including Hitachi, Network Rail, BAA and London Underground. He was technically responsible for the Victoria line control centre systems concept design and various Heathrow baggage control systems. He has made significant contributions...

Abstract:What represents the tipping point for a predominantly brick & mortar industry like rail/transit to finally adopt an SE approach? Some argue the industry's recent struggles to successfully implement software-intensive, technology-driven projects are a clear wake-up call to address requirements management in a systematic, disciplined way.

After over 100 years of traditional design and construction, the rail industry is now tailoring Systems Engineering processes to cope with the complexities of its capital projects. This industry is attempting to accomplish in ten or fifteen years what has taken aerospace and defense 50 years to achieve—‐ that is, to embed an SE approach into the fabric of its business. Four panelists will share how their big, bureaucratic and very conservative organizations are transforming to meet today's challenges. They will describe how they are dealing with the driving forces of system interoperability and dynamic technologies and the restraining forces of severe SE competency shortages and institutional barriers to cross‐disciplinary teamwork. They will share how they are changing their contracts, design documents and procedures, and how they are adapting design tools and approaches to deliver successful projects and improve life‐cycle systems performance. These are the early chapters of an entire industry in flux.