WRIT - GSM-R. Mobile communications in the service of railway workers

... the future is very near.
... this is not news - this is information for self-enrichment

instead of joining

paraphrasing the words from one old song: without connection and neither here nor there. This is especially felt by us, employees of steel lines. Now we have an insane amount of heterogeneous types of communication. One employee, for production needs, may have a bunch of telephones. And this moment is a little depressing, since the quality of this connection, in most cases, is simply terrible.

some history

As they say, in Europe there are about 30-35 types of communication. And the trains there are almost like in an anthill. A French train will travel all over Europe and, as you know, you need to always be in touch.
Based on the above factors, the International Union of Railways (UIC) together with the International Institute for Communication Standardization (ETSI) created a new design organization EIRINE (European Modernized Integrated Radio Communication Network for Railways), which began the development of a new communication standard for the railway.
The ERTMS principle is based on a unified traffic control for all trains in Europe and a unified system that will be installed on all trains running through the territory of the European Union.
This standard must satisfy the following basic requirements:
• be a pan-European international digital standard that requires a minimum degree of modification for use on railways
• ensure reliability in work that needs to be verified in public mobile networks
• ensure the integration of all railway communication services in one network
• support specialized communication services for the railway and radio transmission systems used today Hb
• provide for a smooth introduction of new services, and services, organized in the future
• be cost effective in the installation and during operation.

As a result, after a series of test projects and comparisons of several technologies, the choice fell on the GSM standard, which was modified taking into account the needs for the railway. This standard is called GSM-R (GSM-Railway - GSM standard for the railway).

Thanks to this technology, it has become possible to transfer train and shunting radio communications to a new powerful unified digital system platform. GSM-R provides high availability and reliability, implements integrated algorithms for exchanging information with high-speed trains. Group and broadcast calls, call priorities, call interruption upon receipt of an urgent call with a high priority are supported. Which is undoubtedly much better than ours (.

Like GSM, GSM-R is friends with GPRS, which enables us to receive real-time telemetry information from any locomotive, any station or road lane. Information about the location and speed of the train will be transmitted via the GSM-R network to the control center, which will fully automate the process of regulating the movement of trains.

As for the market for this technology, here the unconditional leadership belongs to Siemens. Siemens concluded the first commercial contract for the supply of GSM-R in Sweden in 1998, and in July 2000, the commercial operation of the GSM-R system in Sweden (Oresund) began. It is worth noting that this was the first full-scale project in the world. In addition, large networks were built on the basis of Siemens equipment in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Norway and other countries.

some technical data:
Frequency range : 876-880 MHz and 921-925 MHz (frequency reuse should be applied with maximum efficiency)
Base station : power from 20 to 320 W (depending on class)
Mobile station : power up to 10 W
Wearable station : power up to 2 W
Frequency channel separation : the band allocated for the GSM-R needs is small - only 4 MHz

If we talk about us, about countries, so to say CIS, then everything is a little worse, to say the least. It seems that everyone understands that this is good, but ...
As an excuse, I heard such a version that we are not given a frequency range for the implementation of this technology.

... but this is news

As for the Russian Railways specifically, the colleagues will be able to take full advantage of the GSM-R standard trunking communication: the government has prepared a document allowing the Russian Railways to use the radio frequencies 876-880 MHz and 921-925 MHz on a secondary basis. The State Commission for Radio Frequencies approved this idea back in March this year.

So far, these frequencies are used by aeronautical equipment, and the current table for the use of radio frequencies 876-880 MHz and 921-925 MHz does not provide for the possibility of using land mobile radio communications. However, the State Commission on Radio Frequencies (SCRF) approved a draft amendment to the band allocation table to create a GSM-R standard railway communication system back in March 2009.

Russian Railways may have at its disposal a GSM network covering a large part of the territory of Russia, but about $ 3.6 billion will have to be spent on its construction. That's it. I hope our Railways will follow the example of Russian Railways.

Read more about ERTMS and GSM-R standard here .