How innovation can spark a revolution for rail travel in Scotland

AS Scotland gears up for the world’s eyes to be upon the country for the forthcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, we talk with William Wilson, CEO of Siemens Mobility Limited, about his aspirations to decarbonise rail transport in the country.

Q So Will, first of all can you tell us a little about yourself? 

A Sure. I’ve been CEO of Siemens Mobility for the UK and Ireland since mid 2019 – so almost two and a half years now. But I’ve a career spanning much longer. 

Originally I was an army officer – and actually I would add, at the risk of digressing, that from a career perspective Siemens Mobility has dedicated programme that helps people who are looking to move from the military into a rail career – but I’ve worked in management for over 25 years now. And I joined Siemens in 2013 when they acquired Invensys Rail; since then I’ve gone from strength to strength working both internationally and in the UK. 

So that’s my business side. Personally I’m pretty active. I enjoy cycling and I’ve two young dogs so get out walking and hiking a fair bit with my partner. There’s no doubt Scotland is great for that!

Q And why is Scotland important to you and the broader transport industry?

A I think it’s fair to say we all know that climate change and decarbonisation are topics that aren’t going away. Transport is the largest emitting sector so if we’re really going to clean up the air we breathe, get people out of their cars and onto public transport, and reduce reliance on dirty diesel trains we’ve got some work to do. Scotland is ahead of the game right now when it comes to the railway. 

The Scottish Government has committed to targets ahead of those south of the border, and the country is doing a great job, but to have a real impact and continue to lead the way there’s more that can be done.

What do I mean by that? Well, Scotland’s terrain is pretty unique. And it means that right now you can’t take an electric train all around the country, where the railway isn’t electrified there are diesel trains running.  So that’s going to require a different view in the future if we are to really decarbonise.

Q So what do you see as being the next steps?

A Last year Transport Secretary Michael Matheson unveiled a rail decarbonisation strategy. Lockdown restrictions on travel had started to ease but people mostly continued to work from home and demand for trains remained very low. This gave Matheson some time to announce what he saw as being the future of the Scottish rail industry and the part it would play in net zero. For Scotland this was a real stake in the ground.

A public announcement that the country was leading the way on transport decarbonisation and wasn’t afraid of challenging targets.
The real question is whether those 2035 targets are achievable. It is definitely possible, although it’s not easy. For example, Norway managed to reduce their transport emissions by 10% in just one year. However, this was a result of a carrot and stick approach by the Norwegian Government making it clear that a combination of policy and legislation is required.

So for Scotland, employing a range of technologies and policies to drive decarbonisation further and faster, without delay, is essential. 
We’re already seeing road traffic levels back to pre-pandemic levels and in some areas even increasing. Those increases simply can’t continue, we need to reduce our personal transport use and move to lower carbon forms of transport, such as rail. Time is not on our side.

So what’s the solution? We’ve got to look at the railway as a whole system – including trains, track and signalling. We need to use the latest innovations to electrify infrastructure where possible. 

And it doesn’t need to be costly either with clever bits of kit that minimise the need for expensive, time-consuming construction projects to get wires under bridges. We can also use lower-carbon materials too. Where electrification isn’t possible we can introduce alternative methods to power our trains and get rid of diesel, moving to cleaner solutions such as hydrogen and battery. 

The Scottish government’s future plans include greener new trains for some lines. But we can do more. There are other areas where partial electrification and bi-mode trains could really make a difference. 

That’s not just me making a throwaway comment, we’ve done a lot of modelling on exactly where this might be possible.

And of course we need to make it easy for people. Taking public transport and easily planning a journey from door to door should be really easy. And we need to make it cheaper. It’s not only public purses that are tight, our bills are increasing across the board.
 

Q What about freight and HGVs? What are the options there?

A Ah, now that’s an interesting one. The truth is it’s more efficient, and greener, to move ‘stuff’ by rail. 

But of course it’s not possible to use battery powered trains for everything due to the large weights being transported – can you imagine trying to travel up steep hills? – and the fact we don’t have rail lines that are able to reach every town and village. So, despite  the driver shortages we’re hearing about, there are a huge amount of heavy goods vehicles on our roads which are big polluters.

We’re part of a consortium that’s going to be trialling the concept of eHighway in the UK. 

We can make it possible for clean and efficient HGVs to run on motorways without encountering issues about the lack of charging infrastructure country-wide. When you look at it, we already have many of the answers that will make a real difference to emissions levels – we just need to get on with it! 

The cycle of new train procurement to delivery is between 5-7 years, and large infrastructure projects aren’t completed in just a few weeks, so it’s important we don’t delay. There really is no better time than now.