Rail
From INVESaTWIKI
Rail
With a network of 150,000 kilometres of
lines, the general trend in the European
railway is the standardisation process of the
main subsystems involved in railway
operations, in order to reach efficient
interoperability. In particular, the European
RailTraffic Management System (ERTMS) is
becoming the European standard for train
control, signalling and traffic management.
Two layers of ERTMS can rely on satellite
navigation: the European Train Control System
(ETCS), which deals with train control and
protection and the European Traffic
Management Layer (ETML) dealing with non
safety of life related aspects such as traffic
management and regulation.
Current technologies used for the location of
rail vehicles and trains in Europe are groundbased
solutions, with high equipment and
maintenance costs. Use of satellite navigation
would reduce costs, allowing cheaper train
signalling and traffic management systems,
whilst simultaneously increasing line capacity
and efficiency.
In the rail sector, other applications are also
designed for proximity alarms, triggering
reports when two trains on the same track
are too close and velocity limit alarms to
report that a train is exceeding the allowed
speed for that section of the track.
For track survey purposes, satellite navigation
services are not only used for construction
work where very precise differential
techniques are used but also for video
recorded track survey techniques, as done, for
instance, in the UK.
More sophisticated applications are being
designed. It is known that train tilting in curves
improves passenger comfort. Up until now
the detection of curves is performed through
a combination of accelerometers and other
sensors.The use of satellite navigation services,
along with track information (curve radius,
location, etc.) is being studied and tested to
improve performance of such systems. [1]
References
[1] Galileo Joint Undertaking
"Business in satellite navigation - An overview of market developments and emerging applications".
