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While the roll-out of GSM-R in Europe has been a great success, there are two immediate threats to its prospects, and there is a growing recognition that railway telecommunications will have to evolve to keep up with and take advantage of rapid changes in technology. As David Briginshaw discovered at the UIC's GSM-R conference, solutions to the threats are being developed, and a way forward is emerging.
THE theme of asset and evolution management chosen for the International Union of Railways' (UIC) GSM-R conference staged at its Paris headquarters in September was apposite as these are the two main concerns of railways and suppliers alike. GSM-R has wrought real benefits for railways by providing them with far better track-to-train communications than existed before and it plays a vital role as the data transmission element of ERTMS which enables ETCS to function. But growing interference from public networks is hampering the use of GSM-R while the assigned radio frequencies limit its capacity.
Mr Achim Vrielink of DB Networks summarised the two threats to GSM-R. "The interference by public networks is still increasing," he told delegates. "Actually 340 interferences have been registered since 2007, of which only 60 have been resolved. The use of new technologies such as broadband LTE and multicarrier base transceiver stations (BTS) within public networks will increase the risk of interference."
Mr Dirk Schattschneider, the UIC's frequency manager, said that interference results in severe impairment of voice and data communications as well as network loss over several hundred metres of track. He said the UIC Interference Database currently lists more than 650 locations in Europe which suffer from interference.
Schattschneider says the level of interference has reached a plateau recently because the roll-out of GSM-R is nearing completion. Nevertheless, the UIC thinks this is only a temporary respite because of the planned roll-out of public broadband systems in adjacent frequency bands and close to railways.
Mr Libor Lochman, executive director of the Community of European Railways and Infrastructure Companies (CER), said significant progress had been made with the interference test campaign. "A valid solution for filters could be defined in the next Eirene release this year, and detailed specification should be included in the control, command and signalling subsystems technical standards...