Electrical SCADA systems from the operators perspective

London Underground Limited (LUL) has a number of control systems utilising Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) equipment. The SCADA systems cover functional areas of the Underground's railway operations. The scope of control of each system has evolved from single site supervision and control to entire line orientated SCADA systems. A programme of co-location of function has been pursued by LUL. The co-location of function has been carried out predominantly on a line by line basis, with the functions of signalling, communications, regulating the service and fault reporting and handling being amalgamated into one Line Service Centre for each line. At present the functional areas are controlled by discrete SCADA systems i.e. separate signalling, communications, regulating service, SCADA systems. This paper constitutes a plea from SCADA operators to the providers of SCADA systems; to consider the SCADA system operator when designing and developing a SCADA system. In many SCADA applications, the dedicated overview diagram of the system being controlled is an essential part of the SCADA package. A meaningful assessment of a SCADA system operator's competence may be achieved by observing the operator carry out the operational functions in real time. The assessment can be linked to recruitment, training and continual personal development, creating benefit for the management team and the individual operator. The assessment can also be used to highlight functional problems in the design of the SCADA system to ensure that such errors do not arise in future systems.