Overview
The TrainCom project aimed at defining a standard Communication Infrastructure, which is able to seamless connect train equipment and ground facilities, so as to support a wide range of applications.
TrainCom aims at achieving the following general objectives:
- open and integrate the railway equipment market
- favour the interoperability at train, vehicle and equipment level
- reduce the life cycle cost of railway vehicles
- improve services for citizens
- allow new value added services
- make railways more competitive (increase of market share)
- enhance attractiveness of the public transport
- improve comfort of passengers
- prepare the next generation of railway vehicles
- integrate existing and new technologies
- allow train fleet management based on remote diagnostics and maintenance
TrainCom work was organised on the basis of a well established phase sequence:
- assessment of user requirements
- specification
- development
- verification
- demonstration
- exploitation
Each phase had an important role and embedded quality assessment activities. In accord with project objectives, special emphasis was given to the demonstration phase, that is the phase when it is easiest to "touch" the results and understand their benefits. To better organise the project and to assure proper technical co-ordination during project life, the time-oriented phase structure is combined with a vertical, objective-oriented structure, which consists of a number of activity fields. The overall organisation, which was successfully applied to a previous project (ROSIN), was well suited to such a complex and articulated project and allowed to assure homogeneous and continuous progress of the identified activity fields, under the responsibility of an activity field leader, from the starting phase up to conclusion of the anticipated activities. Due to technical and organisational reasons, the project is divided into 5 fields of activity:
1- Standardisation and Conformance
2- Train-ground Communication Infrastructure (based on ROGATE: Railway Open GATEway)
3- On-board Dynamic Passenger Information System (DPIS)
4- Remote Monitoring and Maintenance (ROMAIN)
5- Locomotives Interoperability.
Funding
Results
Standardisation and Conformance:
One central idea in the project was to use modern technologies from Internet, like XML, and state of the art in testing environment, like LabView ®, with the aim to propose an efficient Conformace Test. Therefore XML was used as the standard way to exchange data between
laboratories for conformance certification.
The main and most important result is the acceptance of TrainCom results by the IEC and the incorporation of this huge work into the IEC 61375-2 TCN Conformance Test. This had the effect of reducing forecasts from an initial estimation of seven years to achieve the conformance to less than three years. The development platform is complete, authoritative and repeatable, allowing the IEC to precisely asses the standard.
The importance of the TrainCom result is emphasized by the adoption of a strict connection with the experts and the tangibility of its results in terms of tests. More than 85% of the clauses included in the IEC61375-1 have been tested, with precise reporting allowing the comparison amongst different devices aiming to communicate each other. The adoption of the XML format to represent either the submission of documents (PICS) to set up the conformance and its report allows a great benefit. The repository where all reports are stored may be shared, and the list of accepted devices may be accessed for a direct comparison, making easier to carry on the interoperability tests. The degree of testing is deep enough, including the benefit of giving, even if not in the original scope of the work, an insight about the failure of a non conforming device.
The Coach tester was successful in showing the effectiveness of tests at vehicle level. This can reduce problems during commissioning.
TrainCom Communication Intrastructure:
The communication infrastructure was used in the TrainCom demonstrators of Dynamic Passenger Information System and Remote Diagnostics and Maintenance. The German implementation supported the ICE3 DPIS demonstration, the Italian implementation supported the DPIS demonstration of Trenitalia and the demonstration of Remote Diagnostics and Maintenance.
The prototype implementations are available for the demonstrators
Technical Implications
The standardisation activities established good cooperation with several standardisation bodies and railway organisations:
- IEC for the Train Communication Network (TCN) Conformance Test,
- CENELEC for the Communication Infrastructure,
- CENELEC for the Dynamic Passenger Information System,
- UIC for Locomotive Interoperability and TCN Conformance Test.
- AEIF for linkage of TrainCom to Technical Specification for Interoperability of highspeed trains and conventional trains
Two prototypes were developed and verified:
- the TCN conformance test bed, based on LabView ®, to test specific devices;
- the coach tester, to perform tests on a complete vehicle.
The TrainCom Communication Infrastructure (TCI) was the project core result.
The architectures includes the Railway Open Gateway (ROGATE) aboard and the Railway Ground Station (ROGS) and Railway Name Server (RONS) on the ground. Several prototypes were tested to check their interoperability.
The specification of a European database and definition of a structure to store all data useful for the communication infrastructure and common to all possible applications were part of the work as well. Final validation occurred in combination with Activity Fields 3 and 4.
The final result is to offer to any application the possibility to use a standard Communication
Infrastructure to establish a reliable link with any other application, wherever it is located (in a ground system or in a device aboard a train running anywhere in Europe)
The implementations are available for the demonstrators of the project EuRoMain and other possible future projects.
The dynamic information system for passengers (DPIS) will handle trip information and seat reservation data, according to a common database structure; automatic upload of information to trains will reduce time, manpower and errors, improving the quality of service; it can favour inter-modal operations as well. At the heart of the system is a specific data model, w
Policy implications
See key results.
The standardisation activities established good cooperation with several standardisation bodies and railway organisations:
IEC for the Train Communication Network (TCN) Conformance Test,
CENELEC for the Communication Infrastructure,
CENELEC for the Dynamic Passenger Information System,
UIC for Locomotive Interoperability and TCN Conformance Test and
AEIF for linkage of TrainCom to Technical Specification for Interoperability of highspeed trains and conventional trains.