London Underground’s Victoria Line has had a recent major upgrade with new trains and signaling. The signaling system was provided by Westinghouse (now Siemens) and is a Distance To Go Radio system. Tyco designed and implemented the track to train 2-way data radio that forms the critical data link between the track-side and onboard computer systems. Integrity of message transfer and reliability of hardware are clearly two of the main design drivers in this radio system. Utilising RF over fibre technology to add redundancy, the Tyco radio has proved very successful. Jackman Enterprises were used for the management of this project throughout design, off site testing and integration on the railway.

The Victoria Line has had a major signaling upgrade along with the introduction of new trains. The performance of the service is vastly improved now that the signaling allows trains to follow moving blocks. The Tyco designed radio system provides the vital track to train datalink. Tyco were awarded the contract by Westinghouse in Chippenham (latterly Invensys and now Siemens). They had plenty of expertise in tunnel radio technology but had not had any experience of working with London Underground. This presented two immediate challenges, that of thorough systems engineering processes and learning the LUL standards. JE pulled together and reshaped the engineering team to provide a system centric approach to the development. Assurance and V&V processes were strengthened practiced. JE provided day-to-day delivery management up to the first successful station install and commissioning. Tyco’s in house delivery team took over from here and JE maintained a consultation role in the background.

WHAT JACKMAN ENTERPRISES DELIVERED

• Team formation and leadership
• Systems engineering especially requirements
• Design and assurance management
• Commercial lead
• Delivery management
• On the job mentoring of key staff in LUL best practices

SCALE

• 21 km track
• 16 stations
• 47 trains
• Northumberland Park depot
• Bespoke and dedicated high integrity 2 way data radio
• Design, Assurance, installation, integration with track and train computers and commissioning.