Explores the role of data in the future of multimodal transport, showcases the work of leading organisations in the transportation research community, and highlights the roles that promising new technologies will play in readying transport networks for the 21st century.
John Easton is a Lecturer currently working in the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education at the University of Birmingham. His current research interests centre on methods for the storage, processing and display of railway related datasets; in particular data representation and exchange via ontologies and parallel, semi-autonomous processing by software agents.
Selected work in this area has included the TRIME third-rail monitoring system, which in 2012 was the joint winner of the Stephenson Award for Engineering Innovation at the National Rail Awards, and a range of EU-funded projects including INTERAIL, AUTOMAIN, OnTime, Capacity4Rail, and In2Rail. On a day-to-day basis, John is heavily involved in the Centre's £1.65 million Strategic Partnership with Network Rail on the theme of data management and integration. He also sits on the IET's Rail Technical and Professional Network executive team, and on the NSAR-led Routes into Rail group. From July 2015 to March 2016 he worked with the network simulation team on the cross industry Digital Railway programme.