Resilience for the future is a big statement. Looking back over the last quarter of a century, it is incredible to see the changes, progress and challenges the world has faced. Indeed, our rail projects are often designed and built with lifespan for over a century, but who can really predict what the needs of the world and the communities we serve will be and what technology will be available?
Melanie Barker is Head of Delivery, Track, HS2 Ltd
We often underestimate what can be achieved over the longer term and overestimate what can be achieved in the shorter term.
But the most important thing is ensuring that our infrastructure serves the community, and that it’s resilient for future communities.
The term resilience can look at the more traditional view of meeting needs of climate change, material choice, safety, security and reliability. But it also goes beyond that, encompassing human/AI interaction, global migration and boundaries between countries, governments and cultures.
Truly resilient infrastructure predicts the needs of the world before it even knows it needs them.
The future of the world should be looked upon in a practical way: keeping the human race thriving, meeting needs for food, education and health and allowing people to succeed in having meaningful and successful lives.
Rail infrastructure in particular is key to this as it enables the mobility of large groups of people in a collective capacity and in a largely environmentally-friendly way. It bridges communities and countries and enables access to more diverse healthcare, education, jobs and leisure opportunities. Transport infrastructure exists to move people between places and therefore, resilience must support infrastructure’s ongoing capacity to do that.
Railways are a wonderful invention and the UK is rightly celebrating their 200-year anniversary. Looking beyond the UK at the many advancements made across the world, it’s truly astonishing to see the difference it has made to our daily lives.
Our focus must now be on retaining attractiveness to travel by rail. Ensuring that passengers remain satisfied in their choice to use public transport over other ways of travelling, is all part of building resilience for the future of rail infrastructure. Ridership secures revenue, revenue secures investment, investment secures attractiveness and attractiveness secures legacy.
Integration with worldwide transport options also secures resilience. If we can gain an in-depth understanding the user’s journey, we can work with the patterns and needs of the travellers.
I am reminded time and time again that this is all about customer service. The rail industry is a service industry, and engineers play a massive role in ensuring that service can be provided to the customer.
I am sure that when we look back at the end of this century, we will see advancements beyond what we can imagine now in 2025, but we as a profession need to remain resilient ourselves to handle this.
I have no doubt that when engineers see the eccentricity, boldness and pioneering behaviour of our past engineering heroes, they will find these same qualities in themselves. And it’s these characteristics that will secure the resilience of rail infrastructure in the future.
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