Managing Technical and Operational Change: How understanding a railway’s historic evolution can guide future development: A London Underground case study

Connor, Piers Richard (2018). Managing Technical and Operational Change: How understanding a railway’s historic evolution can guide future development: A London Underground case study. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The argument for this thesis is that patterns of past engineering and operational development can be used to support the creation of a strategy for future development and that, in order to achieve this, a corporate understanding of the history of the engineering, operational and organisational changes in the business is essential for any railway undertaking.

The research shows that a railway is a complex system, where the operational life of much of the hardware is greater than the time employees spend in service, so it is common for the origins and reasons for systems on the railway to be forgotten. This knowledge can be lost when staff retire or leave. For new staff, little attention is paid to history and development during induction; indeed, such knowledge may not even be considered necessary or relevant.

London Underground is used as a case study to show how the history of the system has impacted on the design of rolling stock. The work concludes that it is essential for railway employees to understand the way in which systems and operations have evolved on a railway during its history. The author proposes new processes that include historical corporate knowledge in future business development.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):