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Last updated 17th April 2024

Gareth is a Professor of Railway Systems Engineering at the Institute of Railway Research (IRR).  Gareth joined the IRR as a Principal Industry Fellow in May 2016, and was promoted to Professor in 2021.  Gareth is a specialist in vehicle-track interaction and additionally has a wide ranging experience of railway engineering including rolling stock, infrastructure and system engineering.  His research interested are focused on solving the near term engineering challenges of the rail industry, including research into: safety against derailment, optimised suspension design, RCF, squats, robotics of train maintenance, RCM and prognostics, depot operational planning.

Since 2020 Gareth has been the manager of the Smart Rolling Stock Maintenance Research Facility (SRSMRF), within the IRR.  The SRSMRF was established with the assistance of a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant and includes a new robotics for train maintenance laboratory and new office space.  The faclity focuses on research to improve the efficiency and reliablity of train maintenance considering, robotics and automation, RCM and prognostics, work flow optimisation using machine learning and AI.

Gareth is a member of a European Committee for Standardisation working group (CEN TC256 WG10) that writes European Standards covering the topic of vehicle track interface and also the Chair of the BSi mirror group covering these standards (BSi RAE/1/-/8).

From October 2011 to April 2016 Gareth was a Vehicle Track Interface Engineer at the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB).  This role included: Acting as Technical Lead for a range of standards and research project, liaising with a wide range of contacts around the rail industry, membership of various cross industry committees.

Gareth has been working in rail since 2003, including previous roles at Network Rail, Interfleet Technology and London Underground.

Gareth completed a PhD at the Future Rail Research Centre in Imperial college in March 2009 with the thesis: ‘Can the whole life cost of railway track be reduced through the effective management of tangential wheel-rail loading?’.  This involved the use of simulation to investigate various active and passive steering bogies and assessing the ‘track friendliness’ using the ‘Vehicle Track Interaction Strategic Model’ (VTISM), a software tool developed by RSSB.

During his time at Imperial Gareth also took part in an academic exchange with Tokyo Institute of Technology and spent 3 months living and working in Japan where he had a wide exposure to the Japanese railways.