It was in 2002, while at the University of Michigan, that Dr Michael Grieves wrote about bridging the gap between the virtual and real worlds using digital replicas of physical assets, processes or systems. Two decades on, his concept of a ‘digital twin’ has the potential to revolutionise industry.
Digital twins use sensors to gather data in real time, which is then processed in a cloud-based system before being compared with other business and contextual data. The resulting analysis enables the operator to predict problems, optimise critical processes, and drive innovation and performance.
In the context of the passenger rail industry, everything from station ticket machines and escalators to track, switches, crossings and overhead line structures can now be replicated using digital twins.
Pioneered in Japan, where it has been proven to improve punctuality, the software is now the focus of a ground-breaking project involving UK rail operator Greater Anglia (GA), and Japanese firms Toshiba Digital & Consulting Corporation (TDX) and Mitsui, which in 2017 bought a 40% stake in GA.
Having been trialled on the West Anglia route from Cambridge and Stansted Airport to London Liverpool Street, it is now being rolled-out across the network in the east of England to help Greater Anglia create and deploy more robust timetables using Toshiba’s AI-enabled Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) technology.
At the moment, Greater Anglia may have an timetable created in an innovative way, but is struggling to commission new trains to actually operate a service as timetabled! Both of their major vendors have problems at the moment