How could the UK reduce the cost of large infrastructure projects?

[Peter Sarf]

Article on a presentation in Glasgow regarding cutting cost of electrification, an AI tool developed by Furrer and Frey

AI platform 'making savings' in electrification unveiled - Rail UK

AI platform 'making savings' in electrification unveiled - Electrification

railuk.com

Well....
Albeit I am surprised the UK government could be bothered to afford the research and resulting tool !.
Good news on the face of it.
Thank you very much for sharing with us.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Well....
Albeit I am surprised the UK government could be bothered to afford the research and resulting tool !.
Good news on the face of it.
Thank you very much for sharing with us.

UK government is great at paying for research to help it believe it is innovative and forward thinking.

Less good at actually implementing anything from the research.

 

[Peter Sarf]

UK government is great at paying for research to help it believe it is innovative and forward thinking.

Less good at actually implementing anything from the research.

That is the risk.

APT....
Tilting train technology sold off.
Then import Pendolino from Europe.
Oddly now (at last) getting round the need to tilt - by the skin of our teeth if a bit lucky.

 

[PartyOperator]

Yeah, the risk is that when the UK actually implements the clever, home-grown technology it's usually a half-baked, unreliable system that fails to deliver anything people really want. APT would have been another AGR/Concorde. It would have meant slightly faster intercity journeys at the cost of capacity and reliability. Waiting for someone else do to do tilting trains properly while the UK upgraded the infrastructure was a rare win. And in the end it turned out that quicker acceleration basically achieves the same gains much more cheaply and tilting trains will disappear.