Advances in Communications Based

Train Control for Metro Railways
Charles R. Page
Business Development Director
Invensys Rail Group

INTRODUCTION
High capacity urban rail transport has been the life blood of the world’s
great and aspiring cities for over a century. Traffic congestion, limited land
availability and high levels of passenger demand are not new.

In essence metro style railways have always needed to be;

ƒ Capable
ƒ High capacity
ƒ Short journey times
ƒ Safe
ƒ Reliable

ƒ Regular, predictable and uninterrupted services

ƒ Competitive
ƒ Cost effective to build, operate and maintain, in comparison with the Figure 1 – Metro ridership is
alternatives growing globally
ƒ Convenient, clean, comfortable and secure
ƒ Sustainable
ƒ Economically, socially and environmentally viable for the long term
However, society’s expectations, the competitive environment and the ability of technology to deliver on these
requirements have changed radically.

In particular, advances in train control technology continue to be a critical enabler for the improving
performance of metro systems.

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THE PATH TO AUTOMATION

As in all quality control systems, the quality of the output (however that is defined) is directly linked to the
capability of the production process. Specifically, it is improved by reducing variations in the performance of
the production process.

The human operator is often the source of the greatest variability and automation of the driving task was an
obvious development. Automated operation is not new in itself; examples go back to the early 1960’s in
London (Hainault Loop 1963, Victoria Line 1968).

In effect this has been a journey towards greater automation of the driving task, coupled with the improved
modelling of optimum network behaviour and the more sophisticated use of better data.

In the process, the latest communications technologies have become essential in getting increasing volumes of
this accurate real time data to where it is needed, hence the emergence of Communications Based Train
Control (CBTC) systems.

As a result;

ƒ Higher capabilities are possible

ƒ Higher capacities
ƒ Faster journeys
ƒ More predictable performance – and the practical performance approaches the theoretical performance
more closely
ƒ Reliability improves
ƒ Automated systems experience more predictable wear and tear.
ƒ Reliability improves through repetition, experience curve effects, design improvements and reduced
variability.
ƒ Recovery from disturbances is quicker, because recovery can also be automated and optimised.
ƒ Costs are reduced
ƒ Technology cost/benefits tend to improve whilst labour costs tend to increase
ƒ Reduction in required headroom – less need for inefficient excess capacity
ƒ More reliable systems tend to be cheaper to maintain.
ƒ Optimally driven trains can deliberately minimise their energy use.
ƒ The Passenger Experience is improved

ƒ Services are faster, smoother, more reliable and more predictable.

ƒ Enhanced services add to comfort and convenience, such as better passenger information, platform
screen door control and integrated station management
ƒ Cost savings mean tickets are potentially cheaper.
ƒ Sustainability is improved

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GRADES OF AUTOMATION
Unsurprisingly, the possible degree of automation has closely followed developments in available train control
technology. However, it is more useful to first focus on what is being done rather than how it is done. This can
then be supplemented with specific performance criteria such as headway requirements etc.

Therefore a concept of ‘Grades of Automation’ has emerged. Draft IEC standard 62290-1 [Ref 1] defines four
Grades of Automation (GoA). See Figure 2 - Grades of Automation

Figure 2 - Grades of Automation (©UITP)

In effect there are really five grades, as GoA level 0 implies no automation is provided at all. Such a GoA L0
system might be suitable for line of sight operation only, such as with a tram. Most of the world’s metro
railways are currently operating with GoA L2. Generally only the older or low capacity lines find GoA L1
appropriate.

Train control technology has now reached the point where GoA L3 and GoA L4 are the natural choices for new
projects.

Driverless vs Unattended Train Operation

This begs the question of why anyone would choose GoA L3 over GoA L4? In reality the difference between
these levels is more or less unrelated to the train control technology itself. Technically the differences are
minor.

The real issue is that there is a quantum leap operationally in the move to Unattended Train Operation i.e.
GoA L4. Removing the last railway employee from the train raises profound safety and operational questions
in the event of an incident. Suddenly there is no-one there who can be relied upon to operate a fire
extinguisher, administer first-aid, direct and calm the passengers, manually drive a failed train to the next
station or supervise an evacuation in a tunnel.

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The decision as to whether to go to GoA L3 or L4 therefore comes from a much wider analysis of the costs
and benefits of alternative risk mitigation and emergency management measures. For example, will the
system now need?

ƒ Comprehensive tunnel lighting,

ƒ Evacuation walkways throughout the tunnels

ƒ Platform Screen Doors or Gates throughout the network

ƒ Increased CCTV coverage
ƒ Increased Public Address coverage
ƒ Larger emergency response teams
ƒ An extended system-wide hazard analysis and associated mitigation measures, all predicated on the new
or extended risks that;
ƒ The railway will need increased protection from people e.g. unauthorised access and vandalism.
ƒ People will need increased protection from the railway e.g. a train becoming stuck in the system
becomes increasingly intolerable.
The cost savings associated with the salary, training and supervision costs of having staff on board the train
will need to be offset against some increased costs in other areas.

At one time there was a perceived body of public opinion against UTO, simply from a vague feeling of
increased risk when there wasn’t a human representative of the system on board somewhere. However, this
seems to be less of a factor these days, presumably due to the relatively high availability of metro systems in
general and wider acceptance of high automation levels in other fields.

SUSTAINABILITY
Exceptionally few passenger railways make a return on
capital; few even make an operating profit. They are
economically viable rather than financially viable. That is to
say, the social benefits and positive externalities are so great
that society invests in them for the greater good.

As noble as that may sound, the reality is much more prosaic.

A city cannot function without an efficient method of
transporting its citizens and goods. The result of inefficiency
is reduced economic growth and an associated impact on the Figure 3 – Society increasingly demands
standard of living. sustainable transportation solutions

As a stakeholder, Society is also concerned with issues beyond just the financial costs and our standard of
living. It is also increasingly concerned about the longer term impact on the environment and our quality of
life. As a consequence, the railway of the future is increasingly expected to be sustainable.

The word ‘Sustainable’ is increasingly used to describe the railway of the future. According to Heinisch and
Kettner (see [Ref 2]):

“Sustainability as the answer to our present needs applies not only to the purely ecological aspect of
protecting and conserving natural resources that make our planet a place worth living in, but also to securing
a social and economic basis for the future and the viability of companies and the jobs they provide.”

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The rail industry has good reason to be confident of its sustainability credentials. Many studies show that
investment in rail is one of the most cost effective methods of delivering increased transport efficiency. For
example, see [Ref 1]. Rail has also been shown to be one of the most carbon efficient and generally
environmentally responsible modes of transport. For example, see [Ref 4].

However, these are generalisations. There are specific things a train control system can do to improve the
sustainability of the railway.

ƒ Smart driving strategies – to optimising the driving of the train to minimise both costs and energy
consumption whilst meeting the capacity requirements to reduce congestion. The strategies adopted, and
associated trade-offs, can vary across the timetable, e.g. between peak and off peak.
ƒ Remote ‘Sleep/Wake’ capabilities – Automating the reduction of the train’s power consumption by shutting
down selected onboard systems. This might include air conditioning etc, when the train is out of service and
idle, perhaps in a depot. Automating the powering up of such a train prior to the start of the next service,
including any testing required.
ƒ Open and supportable architectures, to reduce whole of life costs
The most advanced train control solutions can therefore make a significant contribution to the sustainability of
the railway.

THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY

SIRIUS is the latest generation of metro optimised train control system from the Invensys Rail Group (IRG),
targeted at GoA level 3 and 4 systems.

The SIRIUS system was originally developed for the Madrid Metro Este line. Most recently IRG has been
awarded the Down Town Line (DTL) project by the Land Transport Authority in Singapore. This £123m project
is in three phases. Involves the signalling for 33 stations (plus a depot) over a distance of 40km and includes
fitting 73 trainsets.

Overall – 40km,
33 Stations (DT01-DT33),
68 PSD platforms,
Gali Batu Depot 73 Trains, 14 Locos,
(GBD) GBD OCC, DCC, Test Track, Depot,
Permanent OCC & KCD Temp OCC, DCC, Overlay Test Track, Depot,
DCC and Test Track Interface with Circle Line at DT15
DT01
Kim Chuan Depot
(KCD)
DCC, S1-S7 and
Overlay Test
Track

DT12 DT21
DT33
DT13

DT19

DT18 DT15

Figure 4 - Singapore’s new Downtown Line

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As the most advanced application of SIRIUS to date, the Singapore DTL project is the most feature rich
implementation of SIRIUS. However, this paper should not be taken as a detailed description of the DTL project
as such.

Key Features
SIRIUS is a high performance Moving Block Communications Based Train Control system. It offers the
following key features;

ƒ Automatic Train Supervision to GoA 3 and 4

ƒ Core Traffic Control
ƒ Advanced regulation and optimisation

ƒ Dynamic Temporary and Permanent Speed Restrictions (TSR/PSR)

ƒ Remote train control e.g. Creep, Jog, Sleep and Wake functions
ƒ Integrated maintenance support
ƒ High performance
ƒ High speeds – in principle up to 350 km/h as it is essentially the same on board technology platform
as the FUTUR ETCS product line used on high speed mainline applications. Typically metros would
only require speeds of 120 km/h or less.
ƒ High capacity – Headways below 80 secs are achievable. In effect headways are limited only by track
geography, train performance characteristics and station dwell times.

ƒ Smart driving strategies – optimising inter-station journey times

ƒ Digital, bi-directional, track to train communications using spread
spectrum radios

ƒ High bandwidth and high noise immunity

ƒ Open (IP based) transport protocol
ƒ Limits of Movement Authority and route profile data sent to trains
ƒ Train Position and status sent to the trackside/central control
ƒ Leaky feeder or free space transmission
ƒ Latest generation technology platform

ƒ Separation of application software from hardware operating

Figure 5 – IP based
system
Spread Spectrum Radio
ƒ Highly open interfaces - Standard Ethernet, Profibus, TCN and IP modules
protocols

ƒ Common components with the IRG FUTUR (ERTMS) product line

ƒ Reduced lifecycle costs
ƒ Ultra high availability architecture
ƒ High reliability components
ƒ Multiple levels of redundancy, fault tolerance and availability enhancement.
ƒ Configurable for desired availability/cost trade-offs.

ƒ Moving Block

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ƒ No physical train detection system is mandated

ƒ Seamless fallback in case of a major system failure
ƒ No manual intervention required
ƒ Fast journey completion – minimising any possibility of passengers being stranded for any significant
period, perhaps in a tunnel.

Other Features/Benefits
ƒ Common hardware – Trackside and Onboard
ƒ E.g. Onboard Computer and Block Processor
ƒ Common hardware with wider IRG product range e.g. FUTUR ETCS, WESTECT Mk2, Digital ASFA,
DTGR etc

ƒ Lower support and lifecycle costs

ƒ Ability to overlay SIRIUS onto existing systems
ƒ Upgrade of legacy systems
ƒ ‘Key hole signalling’ – minimum disruption
ƒ Integration with external and/or legacy systems
ƒ Synchronised train door and screen door control

ƒ Roller shutter interface and ventilation system interface, with Train Control interlocks, for handling
fire/smoke scenarios
ƒ Dynamic scheduling and timetable optimisation
ƒ Integration with station management, CCTV, HVAC, Escalation/evacuation control. Traction Power
Control, voice communications, Passenger Information Display Systems etc etc

Figure 6 – The SIRIUS Block Processor, based on the

FUTUR ETCS Level 2 Radio Block Centre

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REMOVING THE RELIANCE ON PHYSICAL TRACK CIRCUITS

Many people are surprised at how many supposedly old fashioned, and potentially unreliable, track circuits are
present in even the most advanced train control systems.

Now that systems are available where physical track circuits are no longer required for normal operation, why
are they still commonly used? A key reason is that a physical track circuit provides a continuous indication of
the position of the train.

This is critical in cases where a train, or a key part of the communications infrastructure, has failed. In the worst
case, the train is unable to report its own position. Without physical track circuits, and at with least one
unresponsive train, the system has no definitive way of knowing where the train is and hence whether any
particular track section is safe to enter.

Potentially, the system must go through a laborious process of operational trains ‘sweeping’ the entire network
at highly restricted speeds to prove each and every section is clear, before fully automatic operation can
resume. At GoA level 4 this is even more problematic as trains have to creep forward blindly, under remote
control, and hence at very low speeds, e.g. 5km/h.

One anecdotal example reports a track circuitless metro taking well over an hour for normal operation to be
restored, even after all faults had been rectified.

A similar scenario, but one that doesn’t even involve a failure, is a normal system start up. A train entering (or
powering up cold in) the system must acquire definitive knowledge of its position before it can enter full CBTC
operation. Without a positive track code indicating that the track ahead is clear and it is safe speed to proceed,
the train must creep at a very low speed until it reaches the next beacon. At that point it positively confirms its
absolute position, and can proceed under full CBTC control.

There are many system design issues here and the likelihood of having lost all knowledge of a train’s potential
location can be significantly reduced. However, the humble physical track circuit remains a pragmatic solution
if fast system start up and fast recovery after a failure is a requirement.

Of course, if physical track circuits were not installed then there would be major cost savings in the initial
capital, installation and maintenance costs. However, most customers are concerned about the performance
penalties that would occur in some failure scenarios.

If physical track circuits are accepted in principle then a very robust and relatively high performance fall back
system can be provided at relatively little extra cost, over and above the provision of the track circuits
themselves. Given the importance of maintaining an extremely high availability of a typical metro system this is
the system architecture chosen by many customers, particularly at GoA Level 4.

The approach taken by SIRIUS addresses this issue and maintains the highest possible degree of robustness and
flexibility. With SIRIUS, physical track circuits are not actually required for normal operation but they can be
used to enhance availability and performance under failure conditions.

This provides several benefits;

ƒ The failure of a physical track circuit does not impact the performance of an otherwise normally operating
SIRIUS system
ƒ The performance of the physical track circuit based fallback system can be specified independently of
normal system operation.
ƒ The fallback system can be lower performance (i.e. fewer tracks with resultant cost savings) or higher
performance as required.

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SYSTEM OVERVIEW
Sirius supports a variety of configurations, including track circuits-less, free space or leaky feeder radio systems,
single channel rather than redundant ATO and 2oo2 rather than 2oo3 ATP architectures etc. Figure 7 shows a
typical implementation.

Signals, Tunnel head

units, Emergency
plungers, etc

Points

ATS
Servers
TDMS

ATP
PSD
APR Controller
ATO Doppler Transponder

Tacho ATS
Local Site
Radio Computer
APR
Reader WESTRACE Maintainer’s
Radio
Interlocking Control
Antennas
Terminal
Radio
Antennas Block
Processor Key
Automatic Train
Supervision
Computer Based
EVSCP Interlocking
Automatic Train Protection

Automatic Train Operation

Figure 7 - SIRIUS, typical system overview

ADDITIONAL SYSTEM ELEMENTS

SIRIUS based systems typically include elements of the wider IRG product line and third party products. Each
one is selected to enhance the performance and reliability of the overall system. Examples include;

WESTRACE Mk2 electronic Interlockings

ƒ Modular and scaleable
ƒ IP based network interfaces
ƒ Selectable levels of redundancy, down to I/O level if required
ƒ Hot swappable modules in case of failure

SystematICS
ƒ Integrated Control and Communications Systems platform
ƒ Designed for business critical rail applications, to CENELEC SIL 2

ƒ Inbuilt maintenance, simulation and reporting functions plus an extensive library of external system
interfaces e.g. to legacy systems or corporate business systems.
ƒ Advanced Train Control application suite including dynamic scheduling, optimisation and automation, in
addition to feature rich conventional Automatic Train Supervision functionality.

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ƒ Applications for traction power control, passenger information display, public address systems,
voice/radio communications, closed circuit TV and other Electrical & Mechanical system control

Platform Screen Doors

Sirius provides support for third party platform screen door systems by providing controls such as;

ƒ Door side control

ƒ Train located/stationary output
ƒ Doors closed and locked input

CONCLUSIONS
ƒ For the highest levels of system capacity, efficiency and reliability - Grade of Automation levels 3 or 4 are
required.
ƒ For the signalling system, the technical differences between GoA 3 and GoA 4 are minor. It is the
operational implications for the overall system that must be considered.
ƒ Modern communications based technologies have expanded the possibilities of high performance, high
availability and sustainable train control systems for metro railways
ƒ SIRIUS is one of the most advanced CBTC systems available, offering a rich feature set for advanced GoA
levels 3 and level 4 systems.

ƒ SIRIUS provides high performance, high reliability, high availability, scaleability and low whole of life costs.

REFERENCES
[Ref 1] IEC standard 62290-1 Railway applications - Urban guided transport management and
command/control systems - Part 1: System principles and fundamental concepts

[Ref 2] Heinisch, R. and Kettner, J. (2008) - “The environmental advantages of rail” in Rail transport
and the environment: meeting the challenge, Community of European Railway and
Infrastructure Companies, Brussels.

[Ref 3] CREDO Group (2007) - Transport Capacity Research Paper “A comparison of the costs of
different methods of increasing capacity in road & rail environments”

[Ref 4] CREDO Group (2008) - Environmental Research Paper “The current and future carbon
efficiency of the European rail industry”

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