During my training in electrical engineering at Delft University
of Technology, aircraft construction piqued my interest and I
therefore did the specialization Avionics. After my graduation in
1984 I started my career as an engineer for automatic landing and
cockpit systems at Fokker at Schiphol Airport. I enjoyed working
here for twelve years.
When Fokker ceased to exist, I joined Holland Railconsult (now
Movares) in 1997 as project leader for interlocking systems for the
Betuweroute project. Parallel to the A15, a freight line was built
to connect the port of Rotterdam with the Ruhr area. Some railway
lines had to be shifted and others had to be prepared for the
connection to the Betuweroute. It was my task to adapt the existing
interlocking systems for this purpose.
The world of signalling: 'Red, yellow and green ... How
difficult it can be', I thought when I started at Holland
Railconsult. Nothing could be further from the truth. As an
experienced colleague of mine described the railway world: 'If you
sit at the table with ten people, everyone can veto, but there's no
one who slams his fist on the table and says: this is how we're
going to do it'. Finding support was therefore also important in
the technical field.
I also learned that the basis for a safe rail system was laid by
the functional or signaling planning & design. If this was not
well thought out, the desired transport performance would not be
achieved, but it could also be wrong in principle to follow the
signals safely, regardless of the high integrity of the
technology.
In 2000, I became a Safety Systems Consultant and the HSL South
came into the picture, in which I worked on the interface
management between HSL South and ProRail. An interesting challenge
was drawing up the operational principles. In order to be able to
design the new systems, Infraspeed, the supplier, needed a
framework that gave them direction on the one hand, but also
sufficient design freedom on the other hand. This raised a lot of
questions, such as: what are the principles in the Netherlands on
the basis of which the dispatching does its work? These answers
could not just be found in a booklet.
In recent years I have mainly had projects at RET (Rotterdam
Metro), including Replacement Railway Security Metro and the Hoekse
Lijn. As safety manager, I ensured that RET had everything on paper
to account for the safe use and maintenance of the rail systems, on
the basis of which the permit for commissioning could be issued by
MRDH. No simple jobs, but very interesting.
In addition to my work, I like to go out on the water with my
sailing boat. Furthermore, I enjoy making music together with
friends, from americana to jazz, playing guitar. |