Support services for railway transport

Tender description

The transition from a conventionally signalled railway to an ETCS railway requires a significant amount of driver conversion training. To support the UK roll-out strategy the Industry (NR) are looking at how best to deliver the driver training requirements. Currently it is envisaged that there will be three environments to support driver training: — a tablet based app; — a readily portable desk based ‘part cab’; — a ‘generic’ cab environment to provide a driver experience which supports reduction of the practical handling required (but is not tailored to a specific class of train). The scope of this project covers each of the above, of prototype driver's simulators and simulation software capable of being configured for different train classes, route and ETCS supplier variants. Recognising the challenges faced by the industry to undertake driver conversion training for drivers to operate in an ETCS enabled environment, this procurement’s purpose is to: — procure prototypes; — work with the Network Rail and operator stakeholders to test the prototypes and run operational scenarios, to develop and refine the procurement specification(s); — share a requirements set and lessons learnt across the industry to inform future simulation capability.