Unmasking hidden hazards
How the National CCS DRACAS will connect the dots to prevent system failures and mitigate risk caused by undetected system defects.
Andrew Graham, Lead CCS Engineer, RSSBFiona Neoh, Professional Head of Asset Integrity, RSSB
Imagine this: You need to understand why your subsystem, which is part of a much larger system, keeps failing. You can’t fully understand what’s going wrong, though, because the root cause of the failure is in another part of this larger system—and, unfortunately, you don’t have visibility of it.
Now, imagine that—just like you—other organisations in this larger system are experiencing the same problem. However, you don’t know they are, they don’t know you are, and the owner of the root cause doesn’t know any of this is happening. Without communicating and sharing information, the industry wastes time and money, and it may not easily find those root causes.
It might be that another organisation has found a solution to the failure and rolled this out. But would they be aware if this solution would also work for you? And how would you know that they have this solution? Again, sharing information between organisations helps here.
Finally, imagine that you’re in a safety-critical industry, like rail, and that the ‘system’ is Command, Control, and Signalling (CCS).
Alongside the industry, we at RSSB have been working towards a solution: the National CCS DRACAS. But the road to implementing such a complex system is complex in itself.
DRACAS stands for defect recording, analysis, and corrective action system. It’s a series of formal processes surrounding collaboration and information sharing necessary to manage CCS system failures, faults, and defects.
In rail, these systems can exist at local and organisational levels, and they manage discrete areas or projects effectively. However, in order to identify and correct defects across the wider national system, it’s going to be necessary to share data from these multiple disparate systems. This will better allow different organisations to flag problems with a particular subsystem to all other relevant stakeholders.
What’s also vital is that stakeholders can understand the data being shared across a system like this.
Only when we have a central system and a common language can we hope to unveil the ‘bigger picture’ necessary to overcome problems like these.
GB rail has been aware of the benefits of such a system for many years. As mentioned above, local DRACAS already exist within some rail companies for CCS systems, and Network Rail is starting to implement a regional DRACAS for the new in-cab signalling on the East Coast Main Line.
Applying a DRACAS nationally, however, requires coordination and cooperation with stakeholders across the whole industry.
This is where we at RSSB come in. We’ve been convening relevant industry stakeholders to create and deliver the National CCS DRACAS.
The National DRACAS Group brings industry together to work on the problem. RSSB, overseen by the National DRACAS Group, have taken the lead in developing the essential groundwork: a system model and a concept of operations. These were considerable undertakings, and we were pleased to see that industry was fully invested in ensuring that these documents are workable and fit for purpose.
Using that information, we updated RIS-0707-CCS ‘Management of Control Command and Signalling Subsystem Failures, Faults and Defects’, which was published in September 2023.
The next stage was to outline who needed to do what, and when, to start making the National CCS DRACAS a reality. Working with the Asset Integrity Group, we held workshops with nearly 50 stakeholders across rail. The outcome was a roadmap of 70 potential projects in six interrelated workstreams. This shows how organisations can contribute to the realisation of the National CCS DRACAS.
We’ve just recently published a Data Sharing Charter. This is a high-level document that explains the principles for data sharing that underpin the way the National CCS DRACAS will work.
The document calls for industry contribution to:
endorse the principles of data sharing
contribute to the development of a data governance framework
collaboratively understand the data to be shared and adopt a common language
recognise the roles and responsibilities required to support a successful implementation.
Being transparent about data sharing principles now is a key step in encouraging organisations to sign up to the charter. It’s also vital for fostering that all-important trust in the future DRACAS.
Publishing the charter is another key milestone for the National CCS DRACAS roadmap. We invite all relevant stakeholders to sign it.
We’re already looking at the next stage: developing a value driver tool.
There are so many benefits from the National CCS DRACAS, and we recognise that each organisation needs to know what their benefits are so that they can quantify the scale of their contribution and know how best to organise it. The value driver tool will help them see how they benefit.
We’ll be working on this value driver tool during 2025, and we’ll share it with stakeholders once complete.
If you have insights or questions about the National CCS DRACAS that you want to share, please get in touch.
The National CCS DRACAS provides a solution for finding underlying issues in rail CCS systems. Explore the benefits, stakeholders, and roadmaps for this vital industry initiative.
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