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Mark Halinaty, Managing Director, Alcatel TAS UK

Firth Whitwam, Director, Product Strategy, Alcatel TAS CIT

P.L. Chiu,

Business Development Manager, Alcatel Canada Inc, Transport Automation

Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) offers a variety of benefits over traditional signaling and is growing in popularity with Transit System Operators all over the world. SelTrac is a CBTC system with a proven heritage spanning more than 20 years in Automatic Train Operation (ATO) and driver-less applications, and was the choice of Tube Lines for its Jubilee and Northern Line Upgrade Programs on the London Underground. Applying this proven technology to the unique environment of the London Underground provides some interesting challenges. This paper looks at the background of the project and the innovative approaches to deal with putting SelTrac on the London Underground.

The fundamental challenge of a project such as this lies in implementing a new system on a heavily used railway without disrupting or degrading the daily service in any way. At the same time, there is a desire to achieve the operational benefits as soon as possible. The majority of the risk associated with such an ambitious project is avoided by the selection of a well proven in service system. The SelTrac system has been in service around the world for more than 20 years. The hardware platforms, software algorithms and implementation strategies are all well established. Two of the more relevant references are London's Docklands Light Railway and Hong Kong's West Rail, both of which have many similarities to the London Underground environment and operating procedures. The combination of the proven track record of the SelTrac system, good planning, staged system integration and testing approach will result in achieving the performance improvement on time with minimal disruption.