Both internal and external market factors are driving evolution of the communications solutions being developed for railway network operators. The more forward-thinking telephony specialists are grasping the opportunities which these influences bring to proactively drive change and bring greater functionality into the sector. As well as there being a broader feature set, fundamentals such as safety and efficiency are greatly improved.
Here today, gone tomorrow
One blunt driver of change is the looming unavailability of the GSM-R subsystem of the European Rail Traffic Management System, which has been implemented globally since the 1990s and throughout the early part of this century, and which has had a transformative effect on railway operations and maintenance.
GSM-R provides rail network operators with voice and data services and has accomplished a number of important things since it was introduced. It has satisfied the need to cost-efficiently achieve cross-border interoperability, and, by carrying signalling information directly to the train driver, enabled higher train speeds (up to 310mph/500km/h) and greater traffic densities with a high level of safety.
GSM-R continues to provide a secure platform for voice and data communication between railway operational staff, including drivers, dispatchers, shunting team members, train engineers, and station controllers. It delivers features such as group calls, voice broadcast, location-based connections and call pre-emption in cases of emergency.
However, the solution will go defunct in the next few years, as cellular telephony companies cease to support the 2G communications networks on which it is based — and even if that were not the case, it would still fail to keep pace with the data and bandwidth needs of modern rail network operators and users.
Next-generation capabilities
Emerging services include moving block-based train control systems, real-time train status monitoring, intelligent operations and maintenance, and railway IoT; further value-added services include multimedia dispatch communications, intelligent infrastructure management, trackside IoT, predictive maintenance, and passenger information transmission.
As the rail industry moves towards the use of broadband as a solution, the need for a more modern cellular-based capability has emerged.
We have seen the development of 4G-based LTE-R and its implementation on South Korea's railway express line, China's heavy-haul railway and urban rail transit networks, and France's urban rail transit network. However, recognising the need to provide system longevity as well as adequately address burgeoning data/bandwidth needs, the UIC — the rail industry’s international body — has taken the decision to leapfrog several generations of cellular technology and move straight to a 5G-based solution. This is the Future Railway Management Communication system (FRMCS).
FRMCS development
Frequency allocation by the Electronic Communications Committee of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations took place in November 2020 and the UIC released the first set of FRMCS specifications in 2023. It plans to release V2 in 2024 and follow with V3 — the first commercial version — by the end of 2026.
To help users cope with the multi-generational leap, FRMCS uses a three-strata decoupled architecture which enables railway operators to choose between 4G, 5G, or other radio access technologies as necessary.
This build philosophy enables a staged approach to 5G implementation. It takes account of the varying speed of roll-out of 5G networks at different locations around the globe. This is an external limitation which has been addressed with a great deal of pragmatism; a July 2024 UIC technical guideline outlines FRMCS-T (‘Transition’) which enables quick deployment of the standard on 4G networks and then fast, simple upgrade to 5G operation using just software upgrades when this becomes appropriate.
Enabling opportunity
Until recently, a lack of intelligent methodologies that are digital in nature has prevented improvement of railway service quality and efficiency. However, as GSM-R nears the end of its operational life, FRMCS opens the door on several new, strategically important opportunities. It does this by addressing two main problems.
The first is the most obvious: insufficient communications network bandwidth, which is hindering the development of new transportation and dispatching services.
The second is that many information systems have been deployed independently and continue to operate in isolation. This means that resources cannot be managed in a unified manner. Service convergence needs to be accelerated in order to unleash the value of the data held within (often discretely) and support the development of intelligent services. FRMCS provides the communications basis of the answer.
Four elements of success
Huawei’s digital foundation for transportation and logistics is multimodal in nature. It consists of four elements — Transportation Hub, Transportation Network, Passenger/Freight Flow, and Three-Dimensional Transportation — which are needed for a successful, comprehensive transformation.
Transportation Hub refers to nodes such as maritime ports, airports, stations and terminals.
Transportation Network describes the linking networks, which includes highways, waterways, railways, airways, urban roads and metro systems.
Passenger/Freight Flow encompasses the comprehensive three-dimensional transportation systems for passenger flows, and modern logistics systems based on the connection of hub nodes and networks.
Three-Dimensional Transportation relates to the foundation-level service models that enable integration of traditional, general industry practices and new operating methods.
This philosophy recognises how nodes of all types — sea and airports, rail hubs and terminals — are extending outwards and increasing their influence. Rail hubs, for example, are evolving into transportation cities.
At the same time, the connecting links are evolving. In the rail sector, this means that there is an increasing emphasis on intelligent network operations rather than adding track capacity.
Business, revenue and information flows are also being streamlined, with the result that passenger and freight flows are more closely integrated and therefore smoother.
From on high…
A fundamental step is to take data services up into the cloud. This enables all information to be held and processed in one place. From there, the operating characteristics of 5G-based communication can be brought to bear.
2G-based GSM-R, which utilises base stations located 4.3-9.3 miles (7-15km) apart, has some distinct limitations. For example, its 4MHz bandwidth limit renders it inadequate for large railway stations, hubs and rail merging areas, while co-channel and adjacent-channel interference complicate network planning.
FRMCS, in combination with Railway One Cloud and other Huawei technologies, addresses things rather differently.
At the ground level, the signal directionality achievable using advanced 8T8R beam-forming technology dramatically improves transmission and reception. It results in a solution which operates safely and successfully in dense environments but with a minimal yet efficient infrastructure footprint.
Simultaneously, E2E hard-slicing enables provision of discrete levels of service to different applications, devices and users — in other words, numerous different high-capacity data streams can be provided concurrently, securely and in close proximity to each other.
This cloud-based solution, with its unified architecture, strong security and reliability, improves resource utilisation by 100 percent and O&M efficiency by half.
Meanwhile, railway foundation models enable intelligent upgrading of infrastructure and other systems. For example, the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the Huawei Trouble of moving Freight Car Detection Solution (TFDS) automates image-based inspection of moving wagons and addresses the many limitations of manual inspection. The TFDS achieves near-100% fault recognition levels; its use enables intelligent scheduling and improves vehicle maintenance efficiency by almost a third.
Improving operations and security
Several examples of FRMCS systems from Huawei are already in operation.
An LTE-based solution is in use with Mozambique Ports and Railways (CFM), which operates several large, regionally significant ports on the Indian Ocean, as well as nine railway lines which ferry goods to such as South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
A modern, stable, sustainable system, providing reliable train-to-ground voice and data communication, was needed. The system designed by Huawei uses an advanced converged communication platform to provide MCX wireless broadband trunking and multimedia dispatching communication services. It supports 3GPP-compliant mobile communication networks and enables crucial communications and rich multimedia dispatching.
The system also supports specific railway business functions, such as function codes and emergency calls. It provides panoramic, visualised, controllable dispatching and commands for dispatching personnel, locomotive drivers and transport management. This improves security and efficiency.
The ability to quickly transmit real-time information has reduced the number of collisions between freight and passenger trains, as well as casualties among railway maintenance personnel, and Mozambique has already started to benefit from FRMCS’s ability to improve scheduling efficiency and safety. Freight volume at the Port of Maputo, for instance, has increased by almost a third.
The CFM system demonstrates the maturity of FRMCS as a standard and has become a regional benchmark.
In South Africa, the theft of overhead railway power cables during the pandemic period caused severe disruption to services. In all, some 620km of wires were stolen. As part of efforts to restore services to pre-2019 levels a suite of measures has been installed, and Huawei’s perimeter detection solution is now deployed across six depots managed by the country’s Passenger Rail Agency (PRASA).
This highly reliable solution has been developed based on research into current state-of-the-art railways, an in-depth analysis of PRASA’s operations and needs, and Huawei's industry-leading technologies such as intelligent vibration-sensing optical fibre and video AI, which delivers high stability and reliability in diverse scenarios, such as strong winds and heavy rain.
Based on specific global railway service scenarios, Huawei's Smart Transportation Business Unit develops and continuously optimises digital railway applications to accelerate service innovation and enhance the intelligence of global railways in intelligent construction, equipment and operations fields. This meets the requirements for reduced costs, lower power consumption, and reform and innovation. It improves the quality and efficiency of transport operations and provides high-quality passenger and freight transport services. By improving railway operations security and efficiency while enhancing passengers' traveling experiences, Huawei's solution helps PRASA get on the fast track to digitalisation.
Content produced in association with Huawei
