Major leading countries and players worldwide - Rail
From INVESaTWIKI
Major leading countries and players worldwide - Rail
For safety-of-life applications, various consortia have formed to investigate potential rail opportunities. At the end of 2004, Gaderos, a consortium formed by several European companies (Ineco,Tifsa, Erri,Thales, Railway safety,GMV, Sener and Aena) demonstrated rail location units based on satellite navigation technology. Other consortia are seeking interoperability with ETCS or proposing dedicated solutions for low density traffic lines.These include Locoprol/Locoloc (Trasys, Alstom, Septentrio, SNCB), Rune (Laben, ViaRail,Ansaldo, Intecs), Integrail (Kayser- Threde,Adtranz, IfEN) or Eco-rail (Technicatome, Alcatel,Teleconsult, Stern & Hafferl, Systra and ST Microelectronics).
In the non safety of life application sector,
many national train fleets use satellite
navigation for fleet management, including
certain United Kingdom fleets (mainly freight),
SNCF in France and DB in Germany.
These systems, along with proper
communications infrastructure, allow tracking
and monitoring of rolling stock, especially of
locomotives, enabling operators to efficiently
track the position of their resources.
The Belgian railway company SNCB is using
satellite navigation to track the position of
their locomotives and optimise train fleet
management.All locomotives should be
equipped by the end of 2005.
With a view to half a million freight wagons in
Europe and some 100,000 trains (including
locomotives and passenger train units) in use
today, Galileo performance offers
opportunities to enter a large professional
European market with specific needs.
FGC (Ferrocarriles Generalitat Catalunya) in
Spain is already implementing the SITCAS
system for Traffic monitoring of its network,
allowing control centres to receive real time
information on train location and speed.
Kaiser-Threde in Germany commercialises the
Railtrac-Kt system to supervise and locate
mobile objects (e.g. containers, wagons,
construction machines). Routes, timetables,
operating condition, loads and temperatures
of 13,000 wagons are monitored using
existing satellite navigation infrastructures.
Unplanned stops or faults are reported via
GSM or satellite communication links. It is
planned to use the system for the transport
of dangerous goods in Russia. [1]
References
[1] Galileo Joint Undertaking
"Business in satellite navigation - An overview of market developments and emerging applications".
