199907 – Kjaer-Olsen – Customer Information & Real Time Distributed Systems Queensland Rail Australia

This paper describes Queensland Rail’s Train Control (or Train Dispatching), Real Time Information and Business Systems Applications existing and planned from a distributed PC based systems perspective that either directly or indirectly contribute to Customer Information (passengers, ports, mines, freight forwarders, etc). A cursory description of some Mainframe based applications is also mentioned where those applications play a role in this papers theme.

Queensland Rail’s computer based systems have been described in this paper starting at the data information source, passed through real time information systems or manually updated systems, to data storage and manipulation systems. This approach has been chosen as an appropriate method of describing how the various applications link together so that information can be exchanged between applications, used by QR personnel and / or provided to the public or customer.

Some historical (over the last decade) and future (up to 10 years) system perspectives are given so that the evolution of Queensland Rail’s computer based systems can be better appreciated and understood.

Where some systems have not been described, they have been mentioned at the end. This paper has also been submitted to the IRSE (Institute of Rail Way Signalling Engineers, Australia) conference in Brisbane – July 1999.