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Access Points
Description
An Access Point is is a specific location where a lockable gate has been provided in the line-side fence and, if necessary steps have been provided, between the gate and the cess.
Keys are provided to personnel authorised to use the gate. Some access points are sufficiently wide to permit vehicle access.
The current Access Points systems hold the information on these access points. These systems tend to contain details such as the following:
- AP base details incl:
- Current state
- Location description
- Track details
- Suitability for plant access
- Location specific details incl:
- OSGR
- ELR
- Track ids
- Organisation Responsibilty incl:
- Key and Key holders details
- Region / unit responsible
- Any digital imagery about the AP.
- Risk and Safety statements
Who Uses It
Access Points data is used both internally and externally by :
| Internal Client | External Clients |
|---|---|
| Engineering | Emergency Services (Police, Fire, Ambulance) |
| Infrastructure Maintenance | Freight Operating Companies (FOC) |
| Infrastructure Investments | Train Operating Companies (TOC) |
| Operations & Customer Services |
External access is on a request basis rather than online.
Data
Access point data is held in a number of systems with no clear master:
- Hazards Directory
- Sectional Appendix
- Right on Track (vehicle access points)
- GEOGIS
- Ellipse
- 5-Mile Diagrams
- Safe System of Work planning system
There may also be localised storage (i.e. MS Access and MS Excel) which hold more recent information than the central systems.
Solution Thoughts
Transitional Solution
One option for the transitional architecture would be to implement a service oriented architecture.
This can be broken down into a higher level architecture.
Final Solution
A certain amount of he the Access Point data is static (e.g. physical location and co-ordinate values, track-ids etc). However a larger section of the data is volatile and may have multiple ???? for each AP. A good example of this is the digital imaging that may be associated with each AP during its lifetime.
Whilst a relational database could hold the structure of the data, RDBMS are not the most efficient solution for coping with flexibility. (Note to self - dig up JLs thoughts on this) A technology that copes well however with this level of flexibility is XML.
The technical characteristics of the final solution would then be:
- Single point of storage (probably Oracle 10g system using the XML capabilities of the database)
- Each AP would be be 1 individual XML document.
- The structure of XML would be validated against a XSD. This allows multiple versions of the XSD to cover historical records.
- The XSD would be controlled by Data Architects, but field additions / characteristics could be requested by business
- XSLT used to transform the document for the various customers.
- CSS used to present the final document to the various customers