Within Rail, there is a wide array of opportunities for technology and innovation to support safer working practices. And whilst minimising boots on ballast where possible will inevitably remove risk, putting people on site will always be needed. The Rail Tech Group explore how innovation is supporting health and safety on site.  

In July 2023, Sensat was pleased to host the first in-person Rail Tech Group knowledge share session. The session was an in-depth and open discussion between senior members from across the rail sector, including HS2, Network Rail, and Siemens, chaired by 4D Consultant, James Bowles.

The session focuses on safety and productivity gains within the rail industry and how innovations are helping to support these efforts. This briefing article is the second of a three-part series which explores how teams can leverage innovation for safer site practices using a three-route approach:

Having a better-educated team around health and safety on site.

Making the site itself a safer place to be in.

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Leveraging innovation for safer site practices

When putting boots on ballast, the unanimous philosophy of ‘safety above all’ goes without saying. Today the industry is calling for the cultural shift needed to embrace innovation to make working practices safer both on and off-site.

In July 2023, the Rail Tech Group held their first in-person knowledge share focusing on safety and productivity. The session was an in-depth and open discussion between senior members from across the rail sector, including HS2, Network Rail, and Siemens.

This first briefing article in the 3-part series explores topics covered during the session around safety and productivity gains within the rail industry and how innovations are helping to support these efforts.

Innovating Safety and Productivity in Rail

Innovating safety and productivity in Rail: Shifting culture on and off site

On any project, you and your teams likely encounter tens if not hundreds of schedule-critical decisions daily. And to best inform these decisions, teams are procuring, gathering and creating more data than ever before. However, often data is procured with a single use in mind and not reused. After its primary use, it’s easy to forget about data despite it still holding the potential to supply further insights.

Valuable data can become locked in specialist software or hidden amongst teams making it difficult for others to access essential information projects already have. Today teams are finding new ways to reuse data and unlock additional value from the data they already have.

In this guide, we show you 3 steps to getting more from the information you already have by:

Understanding the challenge we face today

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Unlocking the power of data: Get more from the data you already have

Surveying in the civil infrastructure industry can be time-intensive. Legacy surveying methods often require putting boots on the ground, which can be dangerous, and subject to human error. It can take days, weeks and even months to capture and access data, and even longer to make sense of it.

The traditional surveying of civil infrastructure has been reimagined in recent years with less manual and more autonomous options. Modern survey methods are gaining more trust in accuracy and can help you access your site data in a fraction of the time and cost.

However, with so many options available, it can take a lot of work to navigate. Here is your guide to the different methods of capture and the different data outputs available, including:

Unlocking the power of data: Accessing the right survey data faster

Unlock your data for a better understanding of your site

With the planning phase being the beginnings of a project it carries enormous weight: the better the planning phase and its outputs are, the more project certainty and profit there is at the end of the development cycle.

During this stage to help assess sites teams have multiple data sources, information and documentation available. But there is still a gap to bridge when it comes to unlocking the potential insights of all that information.

This ebook provides you with 3 steps on how you can improve the planning phase by increasing design quality and its robustness by utilising the available data accordingly.

 How British Land and Amodal sped up the planning of the Canada Water master plan.

A printable page you can use to help improve
your construction planning.

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3 ways to improve the construction planning phase

All your project information in one place

Understand your infrastructure site, its conditions and constraints, by unlocking all your project information in one place. 

Accelerate planning decisions and consents, fast-track option selections and approvals, and boost project certainty with reduced risk.

Increase understanding of site conditions and constraints

Accelerate option identification and selection

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Sensat Plan Data Sheet

Gain competitive advantage and win more bids

Access site information early to gain project context.

Sensat is your partner of choice for delivering more realistic on-time and on-budget proposals, which help win projects with greater profitability and at lower risk

Get a clear view of challenges and constraints

Sensat Bid Data Sheet

Stay on top of your project and stick to budget by unlocking highly accurate site information for progress monitoring, project coordination and risk mitigation, which increases project clarity and certainty.

Simplify interface management and planning

Project clarity and certainty so you can build with confidence

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Sensat Build Data Sheet

Do you have an effective data-led strategy? Isolated and disconnected technology and data could be limiting your business.

This eBook uncovers how technology and data can be the most powerful tool in your toolbox, used for understanding, making decisions and informing interventions that help towards building smarter, safer and more sustainable infrastructure.

 The importance of data quality across the asset lifecycle—from capture to analysis.

Why a platform provides data accessibility and visualisation to unlock project insight.

 Why data integration improves business intelligence and decision-making.

 How AI can lead to greater data translation and understanding.

 Why securing data will protect your business.

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The five states of data in civil infrastructure eBook

Connect all your data, projects, people and processes for improved visibility, control and confidence in a digital replica of your asset.

Always have a clear view of your asset’s performance in one place so you can manage operations, optimisation and risk more effectively.

Sensat Manage Data Sheet

Overwhelmed by data lag? In this short paper get a better understanding of how to exploit data-led technology to capture, process, and analyse survey data, enabling faster and more informed project decisions.

 How to access the right real-time data, at the right time of your project without delays.

 How accurate data leads to data integrity—better-built projects, costs and time savings.

 How to contextualise data and make decisions through technology-led analysis, while collaborating with all project stakeholders.

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Navigate data challenges in civil infrastructure

Don’t let all the hype around digital twins hold you back from understanding their potential for the civil infrastructure industry.

Learn the reality and dispel the fiction. This guide will tell you everything you need to know, from the problems they solve, how to get the most from them, and the true value a digital twin holds.

Digital twins: Are they hip or all hype?:

 Don’t take our word for it, see the predictions for digital twins over the next five years.

Are digital twins the silver bullet for construction productivity? Yes and no...

How to navigate digital twins for civil infrastructure:

 The future for digital twins in the civil infrastructure industry.

 The benefits of a digital twin at each stage of a project.

Digital twins: hip or hype?

Do you use accurate, up-to-date data to inform your project decisions? In this short paper learn how to stay one step ahead of the competition by harnessing data throughout the construction lifecycle.

 The importance of embracing digital and data-led transformation and why it should be at the top of every business leaders’ objectives.

Data's value across the project lifecycle:

 The importance of data across all design, build and operation stages.

 The questions you should be asking when considering accuracy level and what data capture method to use.​​

 The use of drones to achieve greater levels of spatial accuracy, keep on-site workers safe and monitor complex sites.

 Visualise data in one platform so that all stakeholders can be working on the most up-to-date information to create a holistic project overview.

The Data Driver: Why, What, When and How

Learn how to champion digitalisation. In this short paper find out why digital technology is no longer a nice-to-have for large construction companies who want to maintain business as usual, continue to scale and remain competitive.

 Learn how taking a data-led approach to digital transformation will help create a better-built world.

How data-led transformation will pay for itself:

 Realising data-led productivity gains for the industry using digital construction technology.

 The benefits of collecting data across the asset lifecycle to inform project decision making.

 How AI and machine learning will be able to unlock deeper understandings of project data.

 How to translate the real world into a digital format.

Winning with a data-driven strategy

No one understands the long-term legacy or economic impact of the pandemic yet. Harness data visualisation to turbo-power your project productivity and collaboration across teams with a comprehensive data-backed report on the adoption curve to visualisation.

The state of visualisation/digital twin platform adoption today

Benefits and values of a visualisation platform

The Common Visualisation Environment® (CVE)

Data integrations for cross-team collaboration

The future of visualisation and data management

The key ingredients for the road to recovery

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The adoption curve to visualisation

Are you realising the full potential of technology? As the civil infrastructure industry gets back to ‘newmality’ since the pandemic, this paper addresses navigating this new normal and the importance of data-led digital solutions to ensure business continuity.

 How the pandemic accelerated the next wave of data-led digital transformation in civil infrastructure.

 Learn how digital data capture and visualisation is helping companies make better decisions.

 Strategies to navigate the next six months and beyond, while adapting to a digital world.

 How data can help the industry to build a brighter future


Papers + eBooks

Leveraging innovation for safer site practices

Innovating safety and productivity in Rail: Shifting culture on and off site

Unlocking the power of data: Get more from the data you already have

Unlocking the power of data: Accessing the right survey data faster

3 ways to improve the construction planning phase

Sensat Plan Data Sheet

Sensat Bid Data Sheet

Sensat Build Data Sheet

The five states of data in civil infrastructure eBook

Sensat Manage Data Sheet

Navigate data challenges in civil infrastructure

Digital twins: hip or hype?

The Data Driver: Why, What, When and How

Winning with a data-driven strategy

The adoption curve to visualisation

Navigating what’s next in civil infrastructure

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