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An interactive map showing the rail corridors critical for national connectivity is helping to get alignment and consistency across Australia’s rail networks as the sector undergoes the biggest change since electrification.
The National Network for Interoperability (NNI), was developed by the National Transport Commission (NTC) to define the rail lines which carry interstate freight and passenger services connecting major ports and passenger terminals throughout the country.
It shows the individual networks which make up these corridors and the organisations which manage them. As well as the interfaces between networks where achieving interoperability is crucial to improving the safety, productivity and efficiency of Australia’s railways.
“Defining the NNI is an important part of the NTC’s National Rail Action Plan (NRAP) as it identifies the rail corridors and interfaces where interoperability across networks is most critical to meeting the needs of Australia’s growing cities, ports and regions,” NTC Chair Carolyn Walsh said.
Through NRAP, the NTC is working with governments and industry to streamline the many differences across Australia’s 18 networks and get a nationally consistent approach to align new digital train control technology. This will improve the safety, frequency and reliability of services, so rail can move more people between cities and regions. While making rail freight more competitive and better able to support local industries and major exports.
“The NNI determines where interoperability assessments should be undertaken and consequently, where decision-making should apply, so rail can play a bigger role in the nation’s economy while supporting Australia in meeting its net zero emissions targets,” Ms Walsh said.
“As the NNI is where much of Australia’s rail reform is focused, it’s important for rail organisations operating on these corridors to know who they are and keep up to date on their duties and responsibilities.
The NNI map is not static and is intended to evolve and be updated to reflect key interoperability intersections and new developments in freight and passenger rail throughout the country.
Informing a strategic path to digital rail
Australia’s rail networks are making significant investments in new digital signalling and communications systems which present a generational opportunity to lift the safety, productivity and efficiency of rail across the continent.
If the new systems being introduced are not interoperable - if the technologies on trains and tracks can’t all connect and communicate with each other – many of these benefits will be lost.
Overseas experience has shown that a coordinated national strategy is critical to support the digitalisation of rail across Australia, Ms Walsh said.
The NNI is being used to help the NTC develop a digital pathway for train control systems. And identify principles to guide the consistent rollout of new signalling and communications technologies so freight and passenger trains can travel passenger seamlessly between urban and regional networks.
It also sets geographical parameters for new standards and regulations being introduced to drive interoperability.
Under proposed amendments to Rail Safety National Law (RSNL) regulations, networks on the NNI will need to have an Interoperability Management Plan (IMP) requiring them to show that they have identified and considered impacts to national rail interoperability when making changes to their network.
Australia’s transport and infrastructure ministers have also approved the introduction of new mandatory standards for rail network managers and operators that will:
- align digital train control technology on the NNI
- ensure drivers’ cabins are fitted with a single onboard interface that is compatible with signalling and
- communications systems on the NNI
- make it simpler and easier to get new trains approved to run on NNI networks
Through NRAP, the NTC is developing a National Rule Book to be universally adopted on the NNI so that there are consistent rules for like-for-like operating environments across the network.
“The rollout of digital train systems is not a one size fits all, five-year program where we’re going to digitise the whole network,” Ms Walsh said.
“It will be expensive going forward over the course of decades. And it will have to roll out in stages in a strategic way.
“We’ve been asked why don’t we make these new rules applicable across the whole railway. “Well, we don’t want perfect to be the enemy of the good. If we start on the NNI, at least we’ve made a good start.”