Home Learning Legacy Themes Engineering Systems Integration and Technical Assurance

Systems Integration and Technical Assurance

Crossrail poses significant challenges when it comes to integrating the various systems that make up the end-to-end railway, and the organisations responsible for delivering them, due to the complex nature of the scheme. These challenges include connecting a new metro central service with suburban rail services on the Great Western and Great Eastern surface routes, seamless operation across three different signalling systems, and managing the scale of the project with stations, tunnels, systems and rolling stock in my multiple contracts, delivered by many different parties, necessitating meticulous interface management.

The Technical Assurance and Integration team was set up to manage an integration approach on the overall (collective) performance of the railway organised around the “4 pillars”; Collectively Safe; Collectively Operable; Collectively Maintainable; Collectively Performs. This topic area includes papers that describe the railway integration approach at Crossrail, how interfaces were managed, and how the requirements were assured throughout design, build, and testing and commissioning.

SYSTEMS INTEGRATION AND TECHNICAL ASSURANCE DOCUMENTS:

Summary	Publication date	Document Type
System Integration Management Plan Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance The System Integration Management Plan	18/05/2023	Good Practice Document
Cyber Security Management and Assurance Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Crossrail has delivered the first truly digital railway in the UK. To ensure a resilient and reliable Elizabeth line railway, all new delivered system elements; Stations, Shafts, Portals and Routeway systems, need to be robust and secured against any undesired attack, whether it be accidental or deliberate. This paper ...	18/05/2023	Micro-report
Crossrail Authorisation for Placing into Service – Lessons Learned Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance The Central Operating Section of the Elizabeth line is the first large scale railway project in UK to be built and assessed under the Railway Interoperability and Safety Regulations. The Authorisation for Entry into Passenger Service (APIS) by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) involved the assessment of more than 6000 ...	17/05/2023	Technical Paper
Design Gates Process Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance An essential part of the Crossrail design review process involved the completion of both single disciplinary and inter-disciplinary design reviews. This provided an opportunity for interfacing Framework Design Consultants (FDCs), third parties, infrastructure maintainers as well as the Chief Engineer’s Group to scrut...	11/05/2023	Good Practice Document
System Safety for Complex Projects – The Crossrail Approach Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance This Technical Paper sets out the details of the System Safety approach used by the Crossrail Project and describes some of the solutions employed to resolve the key challenges faced during the lifecycle of the project.	10/05/2023	Technical Paper
Grasping the nettle: Integrating the UK’s first digital railway Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance On 22 July 2008, the Crossrail Act received Royal Assent, and earlier that same year Apple released its first smartphone, the iPhone 2G. Digital infrastructure was now beginning to fundamentally change how we communicated and controlled our lives, and infrastructure projects were starting to consider how much of thi...	05/04/2023	Journal Publication
Transitioning of the engineering management in the handover phase of programme delivery Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance The Engineering Management Office (EMO) function provides an important link between the client’s specifier of requirements and its contracting arm delivering the works. The longevity, scale and geographical fragmentation often necessitate a phased completion approach in delivery of major infrastructure programmes. Ne...	02/12/2021	Technical Paper
The Role of Rolling Stock Approval and Assurance within Major Railway Programmes Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance In the UK, the rail industry must comply with the requirements of the Railway and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations which sits alongside the European Interoperability Directive 2008/57/EC. New or modified trains cannot be operated unless the Office of Rail and Road has issued an Authorisation for the ...	02/12/2021	Technical Paper
RAM in an Interconnected World Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Sustainability and Reliability, Availability and Maintainability (RAM) are two different means to the same end: conservation of resources. In the case of sustainability, these resources typically relate to environmental, economic, and social outcomes, whereas in RAM it relates to the design optimisation of systems. The...	02/12/2021	Technical Paper
Managing Reliability Growth in Practice Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Delivering the Elizabeth Line service that customers value and choose to travel on requires a network that is fully integrated, reliable, safe, and sustainable. To make Elizabeth Line the transport mode of choice, the network needs reliable systems and assets that deliver levels of performance consistent with a highly ...	02/12/2021	Technical Paper
System Integration EMI Issues in Large Complex Installations – A Case Study Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Achieving Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) between systems on a large complex project such as Crossrail can be challenging especially where different contractors are involved. Individual contractor tend to focus only on their scope of works and Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) between different systems can only be...	02/12/2021	Technical Paper
Crossrail Systems Integration – Lessons Learned and Good Practice in Managing Interdisciplinary Systems Integration through each Stage of the Crossrail Programme Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance This paper sets out the main observations and lessons learnt about the integration of many different systems and the interdisciplinary coordination activities as taken from the Chief Engineers Group experience of the Crossrail Programme and highlights a strategy for Systems Integration that could be applied on other Me...	02/12/2021	Technical Paper
Final Design Overview – A Crossrail Design Assurance Process Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Assurance is defined as all the systematic actions necessary to provide confidence that the target deliverables have been met. Assuring the Crossrail design proved extremely challenging due to the complexity and scale of the system and, with the designs being delivered via a significant number of different contracts, d...	24/11/2021	Technical Paper
The Railway Integration Approach at Crossrail Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Crossrail poses significant integration challenges due to the complex nature of the scheme. This document provides an overview of the approach employed at Crossrail to define the various dimensions of “Railway Integration” and a high level summary of the processes and techniques used to manage them. It will be usef...	02/08/2018	Technical Paper
Effective Reliability, Availability, Maintainability (RAM) and Safety (S), Principles and Guidelines for Large Subsurface Metro and Main Line Projects Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance This paper offers support and guidance on a major infrastructure subsurface railway project, to select and undertake an effective reliability, availability and maintainability and safety (RAMS) strategy. RAMS which forms part of systems engineering is an essential discipline and integrated in most railway undertakings....	09/07/2018	Technical Paper
Interface Management Procedure Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance This procedure addressed interface management undertaken on the design and engineering of the Crossrail Central Section. It applied to all the systems, sub-systems, components and interfaces that made up the Crossrail Central Section, including all civil, and infrastructure elements plus interfaces to those elements lo...	09/07/2018	Good Practice Document
Integration, Testing and Commissioning at Crossrail Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Crossrail’s Central Operating Section is characterised by high performance requirements of a metro system with high specified train service throughput. This is realised via multiple interdependent electronic systems which control the movement of trains together with station systems, traction and auxiliary power suppl...	09/07/2018	Technical Paper
Maintenance and Cost Analysis on Major Subsurface Rail Projects – Crossrail Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance The purpose of this case paper is to highlight the maintenance and cost analysis principles on a mega subsurface metro railway project. The paper identifies how crossrail delivered the maintenance through the project life cycle. Its objectives are also to illustrate some of the technical and programme challenges on the...	09/07/2018	Technical Paper
Integration tests for Crossrail Station Services Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance This paper describes the integration tests implemented for Crossrail Station Services. It describes a set of Test Scenarios, which enable through their completion to provide a consistent and effective schema, to ensure Crossrail works in an integrated manner. The scenarios were design to test the systems under numerous...	09/07/2018	Technical Paper
Client Advice and Technical Services to Chief Engineer’s Group Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance Between early 2013 and 2018, CEG worked with Crossrail’s programme delivery function and station contractors on station design development and progressive acceptance that requirements were met. In addition, they led the performance verification programme for C100 designs. C100 provided support in both areas of work a...	09/07/2018	Technical Paper
Systems Architecture Models in Crossrail Design and Delivery – Client’s perspective Topic area: Systems Integration and Technical Assurance The architecture of a system can be expressed in conceptual models that represent a system of interest in its environment. It can be framed and described in different views for the perspective of specific system concerns. A system architecture diagram in turn is often used as a work product to communicate these views.?...	30/09/2017	Technical Paper
Stations Bringing into Use and Handover Topic area: Handover & Transition This paper highlights key lessons and recommendations that have emerged through the successful integration, bringing into use and handover of the new central Elizabeth line stations by Crossrail to the Infrastructure Maintainers as end-users. The paper details the organisational arrangements and tools and techniques ...	18/05/2023	Technical Paper
Challenges of Integrating Electrical Systems in a Mega Project – Examples from Crossrail Topic area: Mechanical, Electrical & Public Health This paper presents case studies of events caused by systems integration challenges. They are hard to uncover and difficult to foresee during a complex project. The issues raised in this paper highlight that integration is not a one-off event at each stage of design and that it needs to be undertaken as a continuous p...	17/05/2023	Technical Paper
Completing the Elizabeth line – Session 2 – Systems Integration and Design Topic area: Completing the Elizabeth line event presentations	03/05/2023	Video
A Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery – Part 2: Putting the principles into practice Topic area: Delivery/execution strategy The second report from ICE’s Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery review shows how infrastructure projects, programmes, and supply chain businesses are using systems thinking to deliver better outcomes. In December 2020, ICE published the findings of a major review into improving the delivery of major infrastr...	20/04/2022	Case Study
Crossrail Integration Facility and Test Automation Topic area: Rail systems Systems integration has gained a higher level of importance as complex railway projects operate under tighter schedules than ever before and with limited access to tracks to run tests. This paper demonstrates how a fully automated off-site testing facility is extremely valuable to increase efficiency, cost-effectivenes...	02/10/2020	Journal Publication
Compliance of Technical Assurance Requirements for MEP Installations at Crossrail Stations, Shafts and Portals Topic area: Mechanical, Electrical & Public Health This paper highlights the approach adopted by Crossrail to demonstrate compliance with technical assurance requirements for MEP installations at stations, shafts and portals. The common approach has taken into consideration the diverse nature of design and complexity of installation at different work sites. The documen...	30/09/2017	Technical Paper