Set within Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 is a fully automated GoA4 (Grade of Automation 4) people mover that carries millions of passengers every year between departures and arrivals. Over a decade after it was first brought into use, the Tracked Transit System (TTS) is undergoing its first major upgrade - this will introduce a brand-new fleet of vehicles, as well as enhancements to the automatic signalling system to substantially increase system capacity. A major feature of the upgrade project is the introduction of Automatic Train Operation to an existing depot road to enable both maintenance activities and hot-spare functionality. This talk will give an introduction to the TTS, walk through the capacity enhancements project scope, and discuss how working on an airport transit system differs from other railway projects.
Alastair Hayden is a Chartered Engineer and member of both the IRSE and IET. Alastair is SNC-Lavalin Atkins’ Technology Lead for Wayside Signalling, and enjoys project delivery of modern signalling upgrades – he has previously worked on London Underground’s 4LM Project, TfL’s East London Line and currently supports several signalling upgrade projects around the world. Alastair is part of SNC-Lavalin Atkins’s Technical Advisor team to Heathrow Airport.
Nathan Michael Hill is a Senior Engineering Manager at Heathrow Airport, he starting his career as an advanced modern engineering apprentice and has worked his way through the organisation to form part of the SLT. He has extensive knowledge on all systems that make up an automated rail system he specialises in signalling, control room operations, maintenance actives, fault finding, Networking, HV voltage systems, tunnel vent systems and general wayside knowledge. As part of his role at Heathrow he helped the Exec understand the benefits of the Enhancements project that is currently in progress.