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Wee Meng SIM MIES, MIEE, MCIBSE, C Eng Land Transport Authority, Singapore and 1 depot. From the HarbourFront, located on the southern part of Singapore, NEL runs towards the north-east, passing through the Central Business District, corridor of Serangoon Road and to the new towns of Hougang, Sengkang and Punggol. The depot is located at Sengkang and serves as the operating company headquarter, stabling yard and operation control centre for both the mainline and depot. The paper describes the key consideration and engineering requirements for a fully automated driverless system. It gives some insights to the four main core systems, namely, the rolling stock, signaling, communications and integrated supervisory control systems. The successful integration of these four systems is of paramount importance to the successful implementation of a fully automated driverless system. The overview of the four core systems will be discussed. As NEL is a system with a high level of complexity, the project demands a need to adopt a system approach throughout the design, construction, testing and commissioning phases of all the electrical and mechanical systems. The paper will discuss briefly on the approach taken that led to the successful implementation of the project. The NEL system was opened for revenue service since 20Ih June 2003 and has been consistently achieving a system availability of 99.90%.
Melih Arpaci Diplom Informatik MIRSE Product Group Manager Train Control Systems Siemens Transportation Systems Looking back over the past 40 years of railway history at ATP (automatic train protection)/ATC (automatic train control) systems across Europe, it is easy to appreciate the need for a common harmonised, interoperable train control system. Most countries currently have their own proprietary ATP/ATC system.
Nick Coleman & Anthony Slamen Human Engineering (Australia) Pty Ltd, Sydney Network Rail, London Across the UK Rail infrastructure a number of alterative approaches to the development of VDU based signalling control systems (VSCS) are being adopted by different companies in order to meet the demands of improved railway safety and performance. The systems incorporate different signaller – system interaction design models; interface functionalities; alarms systems and schematic layout conventions. While Railway Group and Network Rail Company standards largely address the technical and functional requirements to ensure compatibility across the UK network and between its systems, they have historically left important HMI safety critical areas (e.g. alarms, aspects of visual coding) open to designer interpretation. Further, VSCS designers complain that where interface requirements have been specified they can be too restrictive – being prescriptive and based on older technologies – and in some cases, actually promote poor interface design solutions. This paper introduces the work that Human Engineering has undertaken in conjunction with the Network Rail Ergonomics Group in order to ensure that human factors requirements and guidelines are properly incorporated into revised and new Network Rail standards for VSCS design. It outlines the issues and processes involved; the adopted approach; and provides specific examples concerning the development of requirements for signalling schematic maps and alarms systems.
Sandra Karrasch BE (Electrical) Grad Dip Mgt (Technology Mgt) AMIRSE MIEAust Signal Engineer QR The purpose of this paper is to highlight the current engineering graduate programs operating in QR, the advantages and disadvantages of the programs, and discuss what qualities a graduate program should encompass. QR has engineering graduate programs in Signal and Operational Systems, Civil Engineering, Rollingstock Engineering, Telecommunications, and Electrical Engineering. The main advantages of the rotational graduate programs are that participants gain a variety of skills and experience, and acquire a contact base throughout the organisation and externally. The main disadvantages are forced relocation of staff to other locations, loss of communication with other graduates and staff, and if the program is not managed well can fail in its operation and in graduate development. To retain graduates a graduate program should consider mentoring, structured training, professional development, management support and commitment, Key Performance Indicators, a communication platform and information sessions to assist in decision making for rotational areas and experience.
John Aitken Director, Aitken & Partners Consulting Engineers Outsourcing of services is a concept that has the virtues of political correctness and fashion. It is certainly not a new concept but outsourcing has become a popular answer to all manner of corporate ills. Its current significance is perhaps not unrelated to some of the spectacular corporate failures of the 1980s when short term gains were the objective of many an entrepreneur. The current reaction appears to be an emphasis on "core business" activities, with those activities that are not considered essential to the core business being "outsourced". Some would argue that communications are not core business for railways and that they should have been outsourced long ago. Others will argue that connnunications are the very life blood of a modern railwa? -- as integral a part of the operation as the track, locomotives. rolling stock and signals. In this paper we consider the role of communications in railway operations. the impact of historical developments, the impact of developing technology and the impact of legislation on railway communications. There are some areas where outsourcing is a natural and obvious step, some areas where outsourcing would achieve nothing and others where outsourcing has been In place for a long time. The common characteristic is that they provlde cominunications for trains that move on steel wheels on steel tracks.
Raja Azizi Raja Daud B.E (Hons) in Electronic Union Switch & Signal The Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System deployed by KTMB into their double track network covers from Rawang to Seremban inclusive of the branch lines to Port Klang and Sentul in 1996 and now expanding to cover the main line between Rawang to Ipoh. The system supplied is the L10000 ATC II, an intermittent ATP system, manufactured by AT Signal System AB Sweden. The System consists of two key components known as the ATP Wayside and ATP Onboard Systems. The ATP Wayside System functions to provide the track information to the Onboard System. The information is transmitted in form of serial data, called telegrams. These telegrams may contain the following; the maximum permitted line speed, announcement of a speed restriction and distance to the restricted location, the aspect of the currently passed optical signal, the aspect and distance of the targeted optical signal, information to cancel signal control speed, train category and other sundry information. The required information is transmitted to the ATP Onboard System through equipment called transponders installed on the track. ATP Onboard system contains the central processing unit (CPU) and several interfaces receive wayside information from the transponder through an antenna, which is installed underneath the train structure. The CPU evaluates the wayside information, as well as the data keyed on driver's data panel such as train maximum speed, deceleration factor, brake delay time and train length. The results from the evaluation are displayed on the driver's panel i.e. maximum permitted speed, target speed and distance to target (if target speed lower than maximum permitted speed) as driver's guidance. The ATP onboard system will then perform the supervision depending on the evaluated information and intervene by initiating a brake application, either service or emergency brake, if the driver fails to react according to the presented data. This paper is focusing on the new product developed to reflect the technology evolution and also part of the engineering development to improve equipment features besides ensuring continual support to existing customer in replacing obsolete equipment without necessitating major modification. The equipment called an Encoder, forms part of ATP Wayside component used to encode signalling or other control information into ATP telegram that can be transmitted to the ATP Onboard System through a transponder. There are two different styles of encoders both producing the same end result. Their difference in operation and installation will be explained in this paper. They are called the ATSS Encoder Type II and the US&S Microlok II ASES Board.
JOHN AITKEN, AITKEN & PARTNERSMARTIN LEHRBAUM, NORTEL NETWORKSGLYN OWEN, SIEMENS GSM-R, the railway extension of GSM telephony, has been designed specifically to satisfy railway radio communication requirements. In this three-part paper we describe the Advanced features of GSM-R that set it apart as a railway system and demonstrate that it is available technology, ready for use today. We explain how GSM-R has been approved by international standards organisations and has a Notified Body process for type and system approval. Finally, we show that GSM-R is applicable to Australia, providing an effective solution to many of the communication problems of Australian railways. Part 1 outlines the advanced and railway specific features of GSM-R.
Mike Eldridge Connell Wagner In the consulting and contracting industries it is essential nowadays for firms to be quality accredited if they wish to bid for government and increasingly private contracts. A large number of government organisations require their suppliers to have quality systems in place which meet the requirements of AS3901, AS3902 or AS3903. This paper addresses the quality assurance issues relating to design services provided by consultants and contractors.
In this paper, we would like to introduce an innovative proposal based on the research conducted by the Hitachi Rail Innovation team to further improve the existing available tablet application, particularly
This Paper investigates the issues regarding use of passive level crossings for livestock movements in the agricultural industry. This unavoidable practice presents a different risk profile to the typical user, with livestock movement being
I started in signalling more than 30 years ago at British Rail, where I learnt how to design interlockings, initially in relay circuits, and then by programming Solid State Interlockings. This work sparked my interest in safety critical syste
The term signalling principles is often referenced with regards to the design of a signalling system. It is also used as part of the title of a person ‘Principles Verifier’ or ‘Principles Tester’. Some rail managers also reference signalling p
This paper offers a detailed FRMCS integrated migration strategy as a preparatory guide for current GSM-R users, particularly Rail Transport Operators (RTOs), as well as for projects in the planning and developmen
The Public Transport Authority of Western Australia (PTA) is currently building a new mobile radio and backhaul transmission communications network across the Perth metropolitan electrified railway network.
Today’s railway fatalities are arguably more likely to occur at level crossings than in the train collisions we tend to focus most attention on controlling. Designing for level crossing safety can be messy and grey, especially when the dependen
The Netherlands is rolling out the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) across the national network. The government created a Programme Directorate to manage the rollout. Cyber security for both ERTMS as well as the transportation syst
To support the acceptance of safety risk for configuration changes to railways, systems engineering recognises both qualitative and quantitative hazard and risk assessment methods. Quantitative analysis can be perceived as objective and quali
Cybersecurity is a hot topic worldwide with regular attacks being performed against multiple domains.