Project proposed by Additional Member (Signal) during CBRR:

15 (xiv): Development of common protocol for various software based railway equipments.

S.No Project details Remarks

.
a. Project name Development of common protocol for various software based
railway equipments.
b. Proposed by: AM/Signal, Railway Board
RDSO or
AM/Rly. Board
c. Need/IR Presently with the advancement of technology, more and more
requirements software based equipments are being used in Signalling on Indian
Railways. Some systems though used by other departments like
NTES & COA by CRIS are interfaced with CTC, TMS & data
logger which are signalling systems. Use of different protocols for
different software based systems lead to issues in
intercommunication. Recent example being the Centralized Traffic
Control (CTC) installed in N.C. Railway and Control Office
Application (COA) maintained by CRIS has issues in exchanging
data regarding Train information. As being faced by NCR, the
train ID generated in CTC is of 8 digits while train ID of COA
system is 22 digits. Therefore, presently there is manual feeding of
train ID in both COA and CTC systems when train leaves from
CTC system to COA system and vice-versa. Also, the clock
mismatching of both the systems is another issue.

The need for common protocol for interface between different

systems of Railways is increasing owing to requirement of better
integration of common data and elimination of duplicate feeding
of common data in different systems to avoid errors. Hence, there
is need to develop and standardize the common interface protocol
for various software based railway equipments which require inter
communication like
i. Centralized Traffic Control (CTC),
ii. Train Management System (TMS),
iii. National Train Enquiry System (NTES),
iv. Control Office Application (COA)
v. Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS),
vi. European Train Control System (ETCS),
vii. Electronic Interlocking (EI),
viii. Data logger,
ix. Axle counter, UFSBI etc.
The scope shall be multi departmental as some equipments like
NTES, COA, CTC, TMS involve feedback from CRIS, Telecom
Dte.
d. Expected benefits Tangible:
(both tangible, 1. Once implemented, it will eliminate manual feeding which
non-tangible) requires extra manpower.
 2. There will be no requirement for development of
individual protocol convertors for interfacing different
equipments of various makes/ types.

Non-tangible:
1. The data can be communicated in real-time (without delay)
due to auto retrieval from main source system like CTC,
TMS etc.
2. Data in interfaced systems will be error free due to direct
retrieval of information from the main source system. This
will enable Communication of passenger information on
real-time basis through NTES.
3. Standard information will be available in all integrated
systems with common interface protocol e.g. NTES, COA,
CTC & TMS will have common clock, train ID etc.

e. Execution 1. Approval by GCM and sanction of project.

Roadmap 2. An inter directorate team at RDSO comprising of Signal,
Telecom, Traffic & LTRR Dtes along with representatives
from concerned Zonal Railways like NCR where CTC is in
use and one or two other Railways which have adequate
experience on COA, TMS and EI like ER, WR & ECoR,
representative from CRIS, concerned OEMs and Academic
institutes like IISc/IIT.
3. Identification of software based systems requiring common
interface protocol.
4. Identification of issues equipment/ system-wise which need to
be taken care in developing common interface protocol.
5. Identification of equipments which can be easily modified for
common interface protocol and equipments/ systems having
passenger interface, for considering development in Phase-1.
6. Development of common interface protocol in association
with Academic institutes and OEMs.
7. Trial
8. Safety validation, as applicable
9. Adoption for use after successful trial and safety validation, as
applicable.

f. Selection of Suitable Academic Institute like IISc, Bangalore And/Or any IIT
Academic and who propose to take up this development.
Industry Partners Industry partner: OEMs of software based equipments of Indian
Railways which need to be interfaced.
g. Project 1. Design of Common interface protocol for software based
Deliverables Railway equipments/ systems of various makes and types
which need to be interfaced
2. This will lead to interoperability between various type of
software based equipments on Indian Railways. This shall
include interoperability between
i) same type of equipments (like EI, Axle counters) of
different makes and
ii) different type of equipments (like CTC & COA,
 ETCS & EI, etc)
h. Expected Two years
Timelines 1. Feasibility study (points 1 to 4 of execution roadmap)- 6
months
2. Development of common protocol – 1 year
3. Trials and provenness.-6 months
4. Safety validation, as applicable – 6 months
i. Estimated Project After approval of project ‘in principle’, feasibility study will be
Cost undertaken by RDSO. Thereafter, cost of the development will be
worked out with Academic partners & OEMs.
j. Proliferation Once standardized and proven, common interface protocol shall be
Roadmap made part of all relevant RDSO specifications as well as non-
RDSO systems used for interface like NTES/COA, etc.