John M. Easton

John Easton is a Lecturer currently working in the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education at the University of Birmingham. His current research interests centre on methods for the storage, processing and display of railway related datasets; in particular data representation and exchange via ontologies and parallel, semi-autonomous processing by software agents. Selected work in this area has included the TRIME third-rail monitoring system, which in 2012 was the joint winner of the Stephenson Award for Engineering Innovation at the National Rail Awards, and a range of EU-funded projects including INTERAIL, AUTOMAIN, OnTime, Capacity4Rail, and In2Rail. On a day-to-day basis, John is heavily involved in the Centre’s £1.65 million Strategic Partnership with Network Rail on the theme of data management and integration. He also sits on the IET’s Rail Technical and Professional Network executive team, and on the NSAR-led Routes into Rail group. From July 2015 to March 2016 he worked with the network simulation team on the cross industry Digital Railway programme.

Publications

Implications of Digital Systems on Mobility as a Service
Implications of Digital Systems on Mobility as a Service
John M. Easton. © 2024. 335 pages.
The transport sector has undone a period of rapid change in the past 30 years within individual transport modes and the greater use of ICT. Technology has created low-cost...
Blockchains: A Distributed Data Ledger for the Rail Industry
Blockchains: A Distributed Data Ledger for the Rail Industry
John M. Easton. © 2021. 13 pages.
In recent years, the UK railway industry has struggled with the effects of poor integration of data across ICT systems, particularly when that data is being used across...
Innovative Applications of Big Data in the Railway Industry
Innovative Applications of Big Data in the Railway Industry
Shruti Kohli, A.V. Senthil Kumar, John M. Easton, Clive Roberts. © 2018. 395 pages.
Use of big data has proven to be beneficial within many different industries, especially in the field of engineering; however, infiltration of this type of technology into more...
Blockchains: A Distributed Data Ledger for the Rail Industry
Blockchains: A Distributed Data Ledger for the Rail Industry
John M. Easton. © 2018. 13 pages.
In recent years, the UK railway industry has struggled with the effects of poor integration of data across ICT systems, particularly when that data is being used across...