Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

New standard for multimedia applications on board trains enables improved interoperability

Authors: Gianosvaldo Fadin, FAR Systems S.p.A., Verona, Italy

Paolo Umiliacchi, CNC s.r.l., Bologna, Italy

1. Introduction

Multimedia applications for railways can be identified whenever no safety related functionality is
involved, in order to provide additional supporting services, asking for exchange of frequently
updated or interactively accessed information.

An increasing number of such services are already existing on-board trains and more will be added
in the future, in order to offer better services to passengers but also to provide new or improved
support to drivers, crew, maintainers and operators.
This is bringing to the urgent need of having a reference standard available, in order to ensure a
good degree of interoperability between applications, as well as a proper interface with the
supporting communication network. So the issue was brought to the attention of IEC, the
International Electrotechnical Committee, and more precisely its Technical Committee 9 (TC9), in
charge of standardisation activities related to electric equipment on board trains.
After international surveying on existing multimedia services and related requirements, a new task
was started and assigned to a specifically defined Working Group, the WG46.
Work started in 2009 and is organised into 5 parts, currently being prepared by specific subgroups:
1. general architecture, as a common basis for all multimedia applications
2. security orientated services, like CCTV and video surveillance
3. driver and crew orientated services, like energy management and cab to cab calls
4. passenger orientated services, like passenger information and seat reservation
5. operator and maintainer orientated services, like remote monitoring and telemetry

Figure 1 – Structure of WG46 and scope of work

The scope is not to specify applications, which could put too much constraints on product
development and evolution, in a sector where technology is evolving very quickly, but to stay at
service level, specifying service functions and their interfaces. Therefore a service oriented
architectural approach can be adopted, in order to take advantage of existing IT solutions. Results
from recent research projects, like the EC funded InteGRail integrated project, offered a solution
tailored to railway needs and already tested in realistic use cases.
The upcoming standard will provide a stable platform for future multimedia products, reducing
development costs and enabling interoperability of multimedia applications at service level.
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

2. Multimedia standardisation proposal. A brief history

During the IEC TC9 Plenary Meeting in Shanghai in 2004, the National Committee of Canada was
drawing the attention of the delegates on the fact that:
“Over the last decade, the demand for onboard digital multimedia services has continuously
increased. These digital multimedia services have been implemented using mostly proprietary
designs and technologies that were overlaid to the conventional communication and control
architectures.
Consequently, the railway industry has had to cope with interoperability and compatibility issues
with most of the digital multimedia services implementations”.

Following the technical discussion, IEC TC9 decided to set up a Multimedia Task Force in charge
of preparing a survey questionnaire to be circulated to the National Committees (NCs) in order to
identify and prioritise the potential area of interest in the domain of railway related onboard
multimedia systems.
The result of the survey was presented to the IEC TC9 Plenary Meeting in Tokyo held on
November 2005.
Following the results of the multimedia survey, IEC TC9 resolved to merge the Multimedia Task
Force together with the existing TCN ad hoc group, in charge of the evolution of the Train
Communication Network, in order to create a Multimedia Ad Hoc Group (MMAHG) with the task to
define the scope for a future new work item on the topic of interoperability for the onboard digital
multimedia services.

The MMAHG presented a report during the IEC TC9 Plenary Meeting in Helsinki, held on
November 2006 and was tasked to prepare a New Working Item Proposal to be circulated in 2007.

The proposal was accepted and the standardisation task was assigned to the existing IEC TC9
WG43, the working group in charge of standardising the on-board communication network
(standardisation project IEC 61375) extending the existing standards to the Ethernet technology.
The preparation activity started in spring 2008.

According to the accepted proposal, the standard shall cover the specification of an on board
Multimedia System for the purpose of interoperability between multimedia subsystems in the same
vehicle and between vehicles in the same train.
The multimedia system is composed of but not limited to:
1. a communication subsystem
and one or more of the following subsystems that communicate along the train and train-ground:
2. Video surveillance/CCTV,
3. Passenger oriented services
4. Crew oriented services
5. Train Operator and Maintainer oriented services
The standardization project was coded as IEC 62580.

IEC TC9, during the Plenary meeting in Kista, held in November 2008, decided to set up a new
working group, WG46, assigning it the project IEC 62580, while the project IEC 61375 remained to
WG43. The resolution was taken in order to better organize the work carried out in both projects.
The Multimedia standardisation was organized in a set of standards covering the following areas:

 IEC 62580-1: General Architecture;

 IEC 62580-2: Video surveillance/CCTV services;
 IEC 62580-3: Crew orientated services;
 IEC 62580-4: Passenger orientated services;
 IEC 62580-5: Train Operator/Maintainer orientated services.

The standardisation activity relevant to the communication along the train backbone and from train
to ground was assigned to the WG43.
In order to assure the coordination between the two working groups, IEC TC9 assigned the WG46
Convenorship to the WG43 Convenor.
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

3. WG46, WG43 and the Communication infrastructure

The coordination between the activities of the WG46 and the activities of the WG43 is a crucial
aspect that is illustrated by the Figure 2Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable..
First of all, it is important to consider the different approach between WG43 and WG46, which is a
natural consequence of the matter to be standardised and of the historical constraints.

WG43 uses a Bottom-Up approach because some physical media and upper layers were inherited
by the previous standardisation activity done by the WG22, the predecessor of the WG43 that was
standardising the IEC 61375-1: Train Communication network (TCN), specifying the protocol layers
Wired Train Bus (WTB) and Multifunction Vehicle Bus (MVB), from physical layer up. WG43 is
extending the standardisation to the Ethernet Train Backbone (ETB) and the Ethernet Consist
Network (ECN).
Furthermore WG43 is working on the standardisation of the communication protocols between train
and ground, defining the Mobile Communication Gateway (MCG).

WG46 uses a Top-Down approach, in consideration that the task is to produce a set of standards
relevant to on-board multimedia using a functional and system description that shall define the
behaviour of the MM sub-systems and their functional interfaces.

It is clear that coordination is requested in order that layers covered by both approaches, the
Application profile and the Communication profile, are consistent.
The application profile offers mainly an abstract model to the application, it defines functions
relevant to interoperability and maps them to a number of reusable services, which represent the
application interface.
The Communication profile provides a general framework in order to describe a service, send
secure messages to and from a service, dynamically discover a service, subscribe to and receive
events from a service.

Furthermore WG46 shall produce functional requirements and basic parameters specification to be
given to the WG43, in order that the specification of the communication stack, and particularly the
physical layers, includes the capability necessary to the MM sub-systems to communicate between
them and with the ground systems.

Referring to the Ethernet Train Backbone, it is very likely that the requirements coming from the
Train Control and Monitoring Systems (TCMS) are not sufficient. As an example, consider the high
speed data streaming that is definitely required by MM sub-systems, like CCTV, but is not needed
by any TCMS sub-systems.

The MCG is another standardisation activity done by WG43, where requirements stated by TCMS
differ from those ones stated by MM. As an example, consider the real time requirements relevant
to the Passenger Information Systems, when updated trip information are uploaded from the
ground system.

The documents which are prepared by the WG43 and need coordination with the WG46 are listed
in the bibliography at [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

APPLICATIONS WG46

Application Profile

BOTTOM-UP TOP-DOWN
approach Communication Profile approach

Application Interface

Communication Stack
(upper layers)

WG43 Physical Layers

Figure 2 - WG46 and WG43 activities coordination

4. The standardisation approach

The task received from TC9 by WG46 was clearly stating to avoid the specification of the
multimedia sub-systems on a product basis.
In order to comply with this request, WG46 decided to prepare the IEC 62580 series using an
approach based on:
 definition of the functional requirements obtained from a Functional Breakdown Structure
applied to the MM sub-systems;
 definition of the system requirements obtained from a System breakdown structuring;
 definition of the services offered and subscribed to by the functions and the relevant
functional interfaces;
This can be summarised by means of a standard model for each multimedia application area, as
depicted in the following figure:

Figure 3 - Multimedia system abstract model

Based on the model and on the FBS, a list of services can be defined, for each specific subsystem,
each service providing access to or answers from one or more functions. This is a service-based
functional interface, where each services is identified not through the physical address of the
device hosting it, but by means of a logical address named URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

In order to have real interoperability, it is important to standardise not only the services, but also
the information which is exchanged between services, in order to have them understand each
other. This can be done within each area of Multimedia applications, using as a basis the XML
language.

In simple terms, the final goal is to achieve the old dream of plug & play for subsystems and
components, greatly reducing not only development cost, but also commissioning and
maintenance costs.
In fact components and subsystem devices will tend to become LRUs (Line Replaceable Units), so
as to be able to quickly replace them in case of fault, with automatic reconfiguration.
Additionally, services provided by applications can be easily reused, e.g. by other applications,
avoiding duplications and reducing costs. In practice, applications can be seen as a collections of
services, some of which possibly shared with other applications.
The service paradigm and the common language for information exchange can greatly enhance
the possibility of applications to cooperate each other, with a higher level of flexibility and
optimisation compared to the present situation. At the same time, they can ensure much better
interoperability at component and device level, within railway subsystems.

An important issue when starting the work was to clarify the border between the Multimedia and
TCMS (Train Monitoring and Control System) domain, so as to better define the scope of work of
WG46.
A service is to be classified as MM service if its own provision of the discrete function is classified
in the multimedia domain, independently from the nature of the function carrier and the subsystems
that provide or use such service; e.g. an MM function can be implemented as part of a TCMS
subsystem.
As a consequence of the above statements, services can be considered in the scope of WG46
when they can be qualified as non-operational Multimedia (in a broad sense), while Operational
and Communication services are clearly out of scope.

From this point, the responsibility for the standard definition moves from the subgroup responsible
for the General Architecture (SGM1) to the other subgroups, which are in charge of a specific
Multimedia area and can apply the defined general approach to it, adding all needed details.
Currently, work is in progress mainly within subgroups SGM2 and SGM4.

SGM2 defines security oriented services, which will follow privacy rules and national laws. They
include, for example:
 Rearview mirror: live videos from rear cameras, used to help the driver during normal
maneuvering;
 Exterior look: live video from external cameras showing the sides of the vehicle and especially
the door areas;
 Interior look: continuing video recording from cameras inside the train, used by train operator
and police for surveillance and security issues;
 Interior listening: remote activation of interphones, to be used for monitoring audio in the
passenger compartment for security issues;
 Retrieving of encrypted audio/video recorded clips by Authorized Body, according to rules and
laws.

SGM4 deals with passenger oriented services, which have a marketing impact, as they try to give
to passengers a better travel experience, but sometimes a safety impact as well. They can be
divided into two sub-areas: passenger information and passenger infotainment,
Examples for passenger information include:
 Interior / Exterior Signs: announcements triggered automatically (by location) or statically (by
crew), providing useful information to passengers like: train and car number, starting and
terminal station, next stop, current stop, time, special messages and indication of exit side;
 Public address: announcements triggered automatically (by location) or statically (by crew)
providing useful information to passengers as the current station, the next station and other
operational information;
 Passenger Emergency Intercom: the passengers can start emergency communication, with
onboard or ground crew, using emergency interphones on the vehicle;
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

 Seat reservation: passengers and crew must be able to know if a place is booked for a specific
trip section
Examples for passenger infotainment include:
 Passenger Audio/Video advertisement: provides a combination of information and
entertainment;
 Internet Access: passenger with his own internet device can access to internet (electronic
mailing, browsing web sites);
 Video on demand: passengers must be able to select and view a video from a list of programs;
 Background audio program: through internal loudspeakers background music is distributed
(muted During PA announcements);
 Travelling information: additional route information (speed, temperature, remaining travel time,
timetable, connections) and services offer (restaurant, bar) can be proposed to passengers.

Work in SGM3 and SGM5 is still in the starting phase, so preliminary documents are not yet
available.
SGM3 deals with train driver and crew oriented services, for example:
 communication between the train driver and the ground centre: exchange of driver advisory
information, amendments to the electronic route book;
 Energy management: green driving style, energy monitoring for saving purposes;
 Incident management and recovery: considering information exchange only;
 Services using handheld devices with wireless access: e.g. electronic ticketing.

SGM5 deals with train operator and maintainer oriented services, for example:
 Remote monitoring and diagnosis: including telemetry;
 Remote maintenance: including access to the technical documentation and maintenance
procedures; spare parts management;
 Fleet management: quality of services monitoring and management, incident management
and recovery (traffic management is not included);
 Energy management: energy consumption measuring and transmission to ground, green
driving style, energy monitoring for saving purposes.

5. Liaisons

In order to ensure that the existing multimedia technologies, particularly the technologies that are
standardised or near to be standardised in areas different from railways, are taken into
consideration, IEC TC9 took some resolutions in order to set up liaisons with other bodies working
on this matter.
The following liaisons were established:

Liaison with IEC TC100

The IEC TC100 is the IEC Technical Committee in charge of standardising “ Audio, video and
multimedia equipment and systems”.
This Technical Committee prepares international publications in the field of audio, video and
multimedia systems and equipment. These publications mainly include specification of the
performance, methods of measurement for consumer and professional equipment and their
application in systems and its interoperability with other systems or equipment.
Their activity is based on the fact that Multimedia is the integration of any form of audio, video,
graphics, data and telecommunication and integration includes the production, storage,
processing, transmission, display and reproduction of such information.
Considering that the task of WG46 is to specify the functional behaviour, interfaces, protocols,
services provided to the user and services needed by the multimedia subsystems, this liaison is
very valuable and the activity done by the TC100 is an important input to the WG46, particularly to
ensure that the specified general architecture and the relevant services are consistent with
multimedia technologies and products available off the shelf.
TC100 has an internal liaison with the JTC1/SC29/WG11.
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

Liaison with JTC1/SC29/WG11.

The JTC1/SC29/WG11 is a working group of the sub-committee 29 of the joint committee 1, a joint
committee between IEC and ISO in charge of standardising the “coding of moving pictures and
audio”.
This working group is in charge of the development of international standards for compression,
decompression, processing, and coded representation of moving pictures, audio, and their
combination, in order to satisfy a wide variety of applications.
Particularly they are developing MPEG’s Multimedia Application Formats (MAF), which provide the
framework for integration of elements from several MPEG standards into a single specification that
is suitable for specific but widely usable applications.
Typically, MAFs combine metadata with timed media information for a presentation in a well-
defined format. Selected MAFs are candidates to become parts of the ISO/IEC 23000 (MPEG-A)
specification.
This liaison is very valuable for the preparation of Video surveillance/CCTV services and
Passenger orientated services.

6. The IEC and CENELEC standardisation coordination

The norms produced by WG43 and WG46 and published by IEC are offered to CENELEC TC9X
for being submitted to the parallel vote procedure.
This means that, when the documents prepared by IEC are published as Committee Draft with
Vote (CDV), they will also be published at CENELEC as Secretariat Enquiry.
Considering that the compliance with the CENELEC version provides means of conformity with the
specified essential requirements of the Directive[s] concerned, see [6], the assessment of the
consistency with the directive and the coverage of the essential requirements specified by the
directive and the relevant Technical Specification for Interoperability (TSI) shall be verified.
In order to facilitate this process and in order to provide official inputs to IEC TC9 WG43 and
WG46, the WG15 was set up by CENELEC TC9X with the task of being the Mirror Group of IEC
TC9 WG43 and WG46.
The WG15 is working on the preparation of Technical Reports developed from documents offered
by the EC funded research project MODTRAIN and dealing with Functional Interface Specification
(FIS) that can be useful inputs for the Communication and Application profiles definition.
Last but not the least, WG15 is the means for an official liaison with the CLC TC9X SCB WG14
and with CEN TC278 WG3 SG1.
The CLC TC9X SCB WG14 has produced the technical reports listed at [7] and [8] in the
Bibliography. This is a useful input to the development of the standardisation of the functional
addressing mechanism.

The CEN TC278 WG3 SG1 is working on the preparation of norms in the field of Road Transport
and Traffic Telematics. It is mainly oriented to urban vehicles but also sub-urban transport systems
are covered, consequently the liaison was set up.
Figure 4 illustrates the relationship and interaction between the standardisation bodies, the
regulation bodies and the representatives of the railway communities.
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

UIC
Union Internationale de
Chemins de Fer
Leaflets

UIC
Train Bus
Steering IEC TC9
Group WG43 – WG46
ERA
European
CER ET5 Railway
Community of
Agency
CENELEC
European Railway TC9X WG15

UNIFE
TCMS Topical Parallel
Group voting
Consistency
Verification
UNIFE TSI STANDARDS
European
Railway
Industries
Association
Figure 4 - Relationships between the railway standardisation and regulation bodies

7. The interoperability issue and the European use case

Digital multimedia services and systems are implemented, for the time being, using mostly
proprietary designs and technologies that were overlaid to the conventional communication and
control architectures implemented on trains according to the standardisation and the state of the
art.
Consequently, the railway industry and operators have had to cope with interoperability and
compatibility issues with most of the digital multimedia services implementations.
The interoperability issues are mainly related to:
 the format of the video, audio and control data at the train communication level;
 the technologies used for the transmission of the data within the train and train-ground;
 the services provided and needed by the multimedia subsystems;
 to a lesser extent, the format of the data recorded and stored.

The Multimedia term in this context can be applied to many items of on-board electronic equipment
which require broad bandwidth communication. An example is Video Surveillance/CCTV.
The standardisation activity relevant to Audio, Video and Multimedia Systems and Equipment is
covered by IEC TC100 (for further information see paragraph 5 Liaisons) but is limited to fixed
applications.
One specific aim of the standardisation activity of TC9 WG46 is to cover the peculiarities of the
multimedia systems applied on-board trains and offer a specification of on-board multimedia sub-
systems capable to interoperate between them and with the ground systems, e.g. Traffic Control
Center and Depots, using the communication train to ground link specified by WG43.
The MM standard will offer the following benefits:
 easy integration and compatible operation of different types of multimedia devices
available on the market over a single on-board broadband network.
 Compatibility of multimedia functions implemented in different coaches that are to be
coupled in open trains.
 Capability of fixed installations to operate with different fleets from different operator. Vice
versa a train will be able to communicate with different fixed installations of different
operators and infrastructure managers.
 A common approach to digital communications which will also enable the development of
more applications that use it.
 Challenge D: A world of services for passengers

Considering that the multimedia system to be specified is an on-board infrastructure offering

standard interfaces and services, the advantage of the continuous evolution and upgrading of the
multimedia devices will be exploited without compromising the interoperability and the investment.

The activity of WG46 and particularly the activity of the CENELEC mirror group WG15 will be
valuable for the European use case defined by the Railway Trans-European Network (TEN).

The area of standardisation is matching the area of requirements definition of the TSI relevant to
the Telematic Application for Passenger (TAP).
Many initiatives were taken in this area. It is worth mentioning the following two:
 The InteGRail research project that was funded by the EC 6 Framework Programme. See
th

[9], [10];
 The CENELEC Ad Hoc Group in charge to organize workshops on the
communication/multimedia railway standards.

8. Conclusions

This paper analyses the standardisation activity carried out by the IEC TC9 WG46 in terms of
historical background, user and technical requirements and interoperability issues.
The main goal of this standardisation activity is to offer a specification of interoperable services that
can be invoked locally on-board and remotely from ground in order to assure higher availability and
maintainability of the rolling stock, higher comfort and security to the passenger, new solutions for
the driver and the operator.

Bibliography

[1] IEC 61375-2-5: ELECTRONIC RAILWAY EQUIPMENT – TRAIN COMMUNICATION

NETWORK – Part 2-5: ETB - Ethernet Train Backbone

[2] IEC 61375-2-5: ELECTRONIC RAILWAY EQUIPMENT – TRAIN COMMUNICATION

NETWORK – Part 3-4: ECN – Ethernet Consist Network

[3] IEC 61375 – 2-3: ELECTRONIC RAILWAY EQUIPMENT – TRAIN COMMUNICATION

NETWORK – Part 2-3: Communication Profile

[4] IEC 61375 – 2-4: ELECTRONIC RAILWAY EQUIPMENT – TRAIN COMMUNICATION

NETWORK – Part 2-4: Application Profile

[5] IEC 61375-2-6: ELECTRONIC RAILWAY EQUIPMENT – TRAIN COMMUNICATION

NETWORK – Part 2-6: Train to Ground Communication

[6] DIRECTIVE 2008/57/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the
interoperability of the rail system within the Community - 17 June 2008

[7] TR 50501-1: Data dictionary and rules for functional standardization

[8] TR 50501-2: Technical contents of standardization work in the field of intercommunication

[9] R. Shingler, G. Fadin, P. Umiliacchi – “From RCM to predictive maintenance: the InteGRail
approach” - 4th IET International Conference on Railway Condition Monitoring – Derby - 18th
June 2008

[10] P. Umiliacchi, R. Shingler, G. Langer, U. Henning: "A new approach to optimisation through
intelligent integration of railway systems: the InteGRail project" - WCRR 2006 - Montreal - 7
June 2006