Citation

Ruesche S, Steuer J, Jobmann K. IEEE Veh. Tech. Mag. 2008; 3(3): 37-46.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the late 1990s, the European Rail Transport Management System (ERTMS) was introduced by the European Union to harmonize the nearly 18 different national train control systems currently in use, accelerate the interoperability of passenger and freight transport, and finally, increase the utilization of tracks by dynamic train control. The essential components of ERTMS are the train-specific, cellular, professional mobile radio system [Global System for Mobile Communication Railway (GSM-R)], and the European Train Control System (ECTS) Level 2, which provides the control and signaling information between the train and related control location via GSM-R in a circuit-switched and wireless approach. This will be the bottleneck of the system and considerably limits the possible number of voice and data connections in each cell at the same time. It will cause a deadlock of the system if the number of users rapidly increases. An alternative approach must be analyzed to counteract this expected deadlock by taking into account that the GSM-R infrastructure, which is often alreadly installed by the national railway operators, also should be used to save the high capital investment of these railway operators. One solution might be the use of the general packet radio service (GPRS). This article presents the latest implementation level of the transmission and the handover modules of the GPRS, compared with the current capabilities of GSM-R. A brief introduction into ERTMS/ETCS and a technical overview regarding GPRS are first presented, in order to guarantee a common understanding of the main topics. Then, the concept of each single simulation module is described, and the first results of the latest analysis are summed up.