All articles by Elliot Gardner

Elliot Gardner

Wayfinding: designing passenger-friendly rail stations with virtual reality

CCD Design and Ergonomics have launched an eye-tracking virtual reality tool called Evidentia which allows architects and designers to test human behaviour at the very early stages of design. Elliot Gardner spoke to the company to hear more about how this technology works.

Mapping Australia’s high-speed rail routes

High-speed rail has been on the agenda for every Australian Government since 1984, but no project has ever made it past the advanced planning stages. With the CLARA consortium looking to use transport as part of its A$75bn ‘smart cities’ proposal, we can at last see Australian high-speed rail come to fruition. Here, we map out some of the potential high-speed rail routes in the country.

Inland Rail: the controversial talking points

Australia’s ambitious Inland Rail project has the potential to revolutionise rail freight running between Melbourne and Brisbane, but a project as large as this comes with its share of complications. As the project rolls slowly towards completion, what are the major developments and talking points?

Too hot too cold: is managing carriage temperature more important than ever?

The UK suffered an incredibly hot summer this year, resulting in dozens of cases of complaints over sweltering train carriages, some hot enough to pose a real danger to passengers. So what are the risks posed by hotter summers, and indeed colder winters, and how should train companies be dealing with it? Elliot Gardner investigates.

Azuma: revolutionising the UK’s East Coast rail line

First announced in early 2016, the new Virgin Azuma fleet of trains is due to enter service in December 2018. With Virgin claiming the train fleet’s introduction has the potential to be the most exciting chapter in British rail history, Elliot Gardner looks back at some of the updates that we’ve seen from Azuma over the last two years.

Biting the bullet: Is Texas ready to embrace high-speed rail?

The Texas bullet train proposal is dividing opinion across the Lone Star State, but recent reports suggest that President Trump has earmarked it as one of the country’s key infrastructure projects. Could this be the boost the project needs, or simply hot air? Ross Davies looks at the arguments.