RailCorp provides almost a million metropolitan passenger journeys each day.
Signalling systems are critical for the safe operation of a rail network. They direct trains and ensure they do not collide. As a result, they are designed to be fail safe. This means that if there is a signalling failure, the signals go red and trains are brought to a stop or run at a reduced speed while staff investigate and fix the problem.
RailCorp’s signalling system has many parts and uses a range of technologies, some dating back to the 1920s. It is a complex system with variable risks of failure depending on the signal’s location, age and design.
Signalling failures can delay many trains and inconvenience many passengers. The audit looks at whether RailCorp is keeping the number and duration of signal failures low enough to support its on-time running target. It includes a review of signalling maintenance and RailCorp’s response to signalling failures.
The government intends to significantly increase public transport usage over the next ten years, while maintaining on-time running. The signalling system will be critical to creating both the capacity and the demand needed to achieve this.
Peter Achterstraat
Auditor-General
August 2007