PhD Studentship in partnership with the Rail industry

Our digital identities will define the interfaces to the future services that we will use for entertainment, wellbeing, government, transport, energy, retail and finance. They will be constructed from our location history, our personal data, and digital records that capture who, and where, we are and the histories of our digital, and increasingly our physical and social, interactions.

The Horizon Centre for Doctoral Training in My Life in Data will therefore train a community of PhD students with the interdisciplinary skills to address the challenge of digital identity and personal data for the 21st century.

We are recruiting one PhD student to carry out research in partnership with the Rail industry. Within the context of the rail industry, the increased amount of personal and systems data that are available provide opportunities to change the way that people travel, as well as the way that rail and integrated transport systems are delivered. The consortium of partners from the rail industry wish to sponsor a project with Horizon: my life in data, that will consider one of the following two areas:

1.      Impact of new data and technology on human and system performance

a.      What is the relationship between new forms of data, and data handling (including automation and autonomous systems) on workload and vigilance

b.      How do we manage the transition to new technologies (including resistance to technology)

c.      How do skills degrade or change due to use of new technologies and data?

d.      How can we use humans, data and technologies together to make systems more resilient?

2.      Future of ticketing

a.      From smart ticketing to ticketless travel

b.      Modern ticketless system will see lots of data being transferred to and from customers. How do we capture and analyse this data? What can we learn from this data?

c.      How do we harness the latest technology to make the ticketing process easier and improve the passenger experience?

Candidates are expected to have a background in human factors/ergonomics, psychology, engineering, computer science or a related discipline. The CDT programme provides training in specialist skills required to complete the 4 year PhD project.

The student will benefit from:

• A fully-funded four-year PhD programme that integrates a leading-edge research project with research training in interdisciplinary skills.


• At least one internship with our partner.


• An enhanced stipend of £16,400 per annum as well as a personal laptop.

We have funding for UK/Home students. Download application form from http://www.horizon.ac.uk/Current-Opportunities and return by email with a CV, transcripts, references and personal statement to Emma.Juggins@Nottingham.ac.uk. 

Closing date: 22 June 2016

Shortlisting date: 27 June 2016

Interview date: 5 July 2016