Gareth Tucker

Gareth joined the Institute of Railway Research (IRR) as a Principal Industry Fellow in May 2016.  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.

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 in the topics of vehicle track interaction, train audibility and visibility, sanding (for improved adhesion during braking) and Remote Condition Monitoring (RCM). 
• Liaising with a wide range of contacts around the rail industry in order to gain input to research and standards projects and communicate the results of projects.
• Membership of various cross industry committees including the Cross Industry RCM Strategy Group and the Cross Industry Freight Train Derailment Working Group. 
• Representing GB as a member of a European Committee for Standardisation working group (CEN TC256 WG10) that writes European Standards covering the topic of vehicle track interface; Gareth has continued to be a member of this group since joining IRR.

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.