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Mining is a cyclical industry, so organisations have been wary of making big changes, but trends suggest that this could be changing. According to the Mine-Site Technology Adoption Survey, 2022 Update analysis from GlobalData, 39% of mines are expected to invest in battery electric vehicles in the coming two years, compared with only 23% in the Q4 2020 survey.

So, what is pushing this increased interest in battery electric vehicles? Decarbonisation is one clear factor, with sustainability being a pressing global issue. Other growing investment areas in mining technology, such as management software, collision avoidance, fatigue detection, and predictive maintenance, imply that mines are increasingly looking to utilise technology for safety and optimising productivity.

With diesel vehicles accounting for 30% to 50% of greenhouse emissions at a mine site, replacing them with a battery-electric fleet is a sure way to drastically reduce overall CO₂ emissions, but how else can mines benefit from this technology?

Leading underground manufacturers Normet believe the answer lies with SmartDrive. This architecture for battery electric vehicles (BEV) was developed in collaboration with customers, building on feedback, predicting future trends, and assessing the limitations of diesel engines, and comes with a wealth of benefits for operators.

Since 2015, Ed Jeffery Ltd has been a leading supplier of specialist rail capacity analysis and modelling in the UK. Our extensive experience in the field includes rail performance modelling, capacity analysis, timetabling, and bespoke in-depth data analysis. As a SME, we pride ourselves in being flexible and responsive in dealing with our customers and their changing needs, and delivering a bespoke service for each client.

With over four decades of combined experience and a team of highly skilled professionals, our expertise in rail capacity analysis is extensive. We pride ourselves on using the latest industry standards, techniques, and software to ensure that our solutions are practical, cost-efficient and industry leading. Our reputation for delivering quality work on time and within budget means that we develop long-term relationships with our clients and support their business as it develops.

At Ed Jeffery Ltd, we believe in a collaborative approach. Our team is structured to be agile and works closely with each client throughout the lifetime of the engagement. We ensure a personal and accountable service for our projects and deliverables, making our clients feel not just reassured, but involved and valued. We also provide quality assurance and control to meet the client's company-specific requirements, ensuring satisfaction with deliverables.

Our current and previous customers include Network Rail, Irish Rail, train operators (TOCs), transportation and engineering consultancies, government and local authorities, and developers.

Ed Jeffery has been verified through the Railway Industry Supplier Qualification Scheme (RISQS) to deliver the following Railway Industry Commodity Classification List (RICCL) codes: B.1, B.10, B.2, B.7, B.8, B.9.

Our substantial experience in large and small projects has given us insight into the best approach for delivering complex information clearly and concisely to our customers. We follow a straightforward and unambiguous methodology that is easy for our clients to understand and gives a simple approach to delivering complex analysis. This clarity allows our stakeholders to make clear decisions and be confident in the information we present.

At Ed Jeffery Ltd, we believe in an alternative approach to timetable and performance modelling that doesn't focus on a 'one size fits all clients' methodology. Instead, we utilise our extensive experience and specialist knowledge to deliver a tailored approach to our client's remit, which delivers the maximum benefits without compromising timescales. This ensures that we deliver valuable insight to our stakeholders during the end-to-end development cycle by helping shape infrastructure options, providing input into scoring and option iteration validation and early feedback against the baseline.

For example, performance modelling is a valuable tool that can deliver significant benefits for our clients. However, too often it is seen as a lengthy, arduous process that requires a fully developed timetable to be assessed before it produces meaningful results. In addition, a one-size-fits-all client approach can result in complex information presented incorrectly, making it difficult to interpret and use in a way that adds value to the decision-making process and the wider project team and stakeholders. Our tailored, bespoke approach, can help avoid these common pitfalls and delivers real benefits that our clients value.

Our track record shows that our bespoke, more personal, service delivers real benefits for clients by making complex issues more understandable and straightforward. This increases stakeholder buy-in and increases confidence in projects and outputs without compromising on quality, cost or timescales. We’re always ready to discuss your projects and requirements, so please contact us to see if we can help make modelling more straightforward and easier for your project and team.

Examples of how Ed Jeffery Ltd can tailor the performance modelling process include:

• Matching the level of detail to the project stage to ensure the optimal trade-off between timescales and required outputs
• Carefully choosing a geographic scope that finds the ideal balance between model size/accuracy and timescales
• Using data-driven analysis to quickly and accurately produce outputs to meet customer requirements

• Strategic Planning: Delivering capacity and performance analysis at a high-level suitable for inclusion in line-of-route and geographic-based studies. This involves finding the optimal blend of the appropriate level of detail with required outputs, and feeding into processes such as industry planning documentation, Business Cases and local planning requirements
• Timetable development: As well as experience in developing compliant timetables meeting customer requirements, we specialise in using data and modelling tools to deliver better quality, more robust timetables. This can involve using advanced conflict-detection techniques, and undertaking a hybrid timetable development and high-level performance modelling process

• Capacity analysis: Analyse current constraints to delivering a future service and recommend individual enhancements or mitigations to realise requirements. Use of tools such as RailSys to model and simulate the as-is and to-be world
• Calculate sectional running times (SRTs): validate existing or help build a case for line speed improvements or new rolling stock
• Performance modelling: Validation of improvement outputs against comprehensive network performance metrics to ensure the project meets client requirements