REGISTER

Dr Corinne Braban, IRSE Associate Member and Dr Gérard Yelloz, FIRSE

Siemens Transportation Systems, France

In the past few years, on a worldwide basis, the subject of resignalling of existing networks has emerged. The reasons are various, such as how to deal with technology obsolescence, transport capacity upgrades, and with overall service quality improvements due to modern operation practices. Simultaneously, there was the additional issue of getting suppliers to commit to long-term after-sales services and procurement in a rapidly changing technological world. This last point has made railway transport companies realise the need to push for multi vendors’ policy or for interoperable systems solution.

This paper will present the various issues surrounding the need of resignalling and interoperability. The different methods of implementation strategy (Hong Kong, Paris, New York, etc) will be presented too, as well as the actual status of their progress.

In order to cover the above issues, in the medium term, a program called UGTMS – Urban Guided Transport Management System - and followed by MODURBAN – Modular Urban Guided Rail System - was launched, thanks to the European Rail Community. Various mass transit corporations, suppliers, universities and research centres are members of this program. The objective is to define and specify standards and agreed on specifications, in particular, common architecture specification including interfaces between interchangeable equipment. The content and status of this project will be presented.