Presentation by First Group at Transport KTN's information and consortia-building event in Coventry on 25th March 2013 - supporting the £5million Digital Railways r&d competition

1. Composite Communications &
CDAS
Nick Hortin and Nick Wright
New Trains Director Scotrail Trainborne Systems Manager
FirstGroup-Rail Division
Confidential

2. THE RTS VISION:
DIGITAL RAILWAY
• Train Operating Company and Group environment
– Franchise life, bidding cycles, and innovation
• Commercial Innovations
• Industry Environment Innovations
– How do we make Industry Environment Innovations happen in a
disaggregated industry?
– How do we make it easy for the customer?
Confidential

3. THE RTS VISION:
DIGITAL RAILWAY
• 1. TSLG Rail Technical Strategy 2012:
– ”Real-time intelligent traffic management systems deliver high-
capacity, energy efficient, on-time railway.”
– “Communication systems are optimised for operations and customer
service.”
– “High-speed, high bandwidth communication networks are in use
across the rail network and on trains and provide dependable
connectivity for both operational and customer facing applications for
the railway and the customer. Data is made openly available to
support door-to-door journey information.”
– “Introduce DAS to make significant contribution to railway
operations.”
Confidential

4. ENABLERS:
DIGITAL RAILWAY
• TSLG Rail Technical Strategy 2012:
– The ”Provision of high-speed, high capacity data and
voice communication systems ”
– “GSM-R and publicly available WiFi on trains is unlikely to
meet operational demands in the future.”
• CDAS
• Harmonised common standards with open
architecture in order to maintain business principles,
operator and route interoperability for both trains
infrastructure within UK and Europe.
Confidential

5. DIGITAL RAILWAY:
THE CHALLENGE 1
• The reliance on digital connectivity is growing exponentially
and as new technologies become available, applications are
quickly adapted or produced to utilise the available
bandwidth.
• Currently there is no standard in place to support the
communication needs, which utilises current and future
communication technologies, this has already resulted in the
deployment of a number of “bespoke” solutions.
• The GSM-R voice and data system is not capable of delivering
the broader communication requirements for the future.
Confidential

6. DIGITAL RAILWAY:
THE CHALLENGE 2
• The anticipated data communication platform
needed to deliver the RTS 2012 vision cannot be met
without an agreed set of harmonised standards.
• Early analysis and RSSB Project T964 has identified
that a composite data communication approach will
be necessary in order to deliver the required
bandwidth and availability.
Confidential

7. DELIVERING THE
DIGITAL RAILWAY
• The introduction of SDAS has delivered many
benefits and its migration to CDAS is consistent with
delivering the RTS. However, CDAS requires the
specification and proving of a composite
communication platform.
• The development of the communication platform for
CDAS should be used to provide the basic
fundamental architecture for meeting
communication needs for the delivery of the RTS.
Confidential

8. THE COMMUNICATION
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
• The specification, development and trials of a real-
time composite communication modular platform to
form the basis of the real-time track / train bi-
directional communication system for the future
railway.
• Delivered through the CDAS development the
communication system needs to be designed and
specified such that it can overcome obsolescence
issues and be easily adapted to integrate the
anticipated technology of the future.
Confidential

9. DELIVERING
THE CHALLANGE
• The creation of a Project Team to ensure industry
wide consensus is maintained by engagement with
key stakeholders.
• Liaison with end users to identify the business and
operational issues to be addressed as part of “The
Challenge”.
• A review of current and new technology to identify
suitability for delivering “The Challenge” leading to
the development of harmonised standards for a
modular composite communication system for the
rail industry.
Confidential

10. Composite Architecture
stations
Other
3/4G
GPS
Composite Etc.
Platform
Confidential

11. Current Status
• Current Situation:
1. RSSB Project T964 identified the current and
anticipated requirements for on train
communications, but it did not detail how these
could be standardised and delivered.
2. Bespoke solutions are already being
implemented, which do not easily support
interoperability.
Confidential

12. Next Steps
Building on the work of T964 the provision of
funding to support the creation of a small
consortium to manage and undertake:
1. A technology review to identify and understand
current and future communication systems and
technologies,
2. A feasibility study into the development and
specification of a high level composite communication
platform.
3. Demonstrated by limited on train trials.
Confidential