Internet of Things Helps Smart Railway Construction

Railways are an indispensable part of transportation in various countries. Especially with the development of the economy in recent years, the requirements for transportation have become higher and higher, and the construction of urban rail transit has been further accelerated. With the popularization of smart cities and intelligent transportation, the construction of railway information is an inevitable trend. How to build railway information, the Internet of Things is the best choice for the moment. The construction of railway informatization combined with the physical network has started. What exactly is the effect? ​​Let's go to Britain and see.

Network Rail Telecom (NRT) is responsible for the British Rail Telecommunications network service, which dates back to the invention of the telegraph and once operated the largest private network in the UK. NRT is now responsible for the national telecommunications asset management and services of the railway network and owns all of the organization's communications assets, including 18,500 kilometers of fiber optic networks. In addition to managing the IT and business communications of the railway network, NTR also bears responsibility for signals, train broadcasting, communication along railways, level crossings, station information and security, and other matters.

Last September, NRT and Cisco signed a contract to deploy an IPMPLS orbital outbound network to provide and support some of the new services it wanted to implement, which may make it a leading example of IoT applications.

For Clayton Nash, head of NTR's telecommunications products, the program is designed to look at the nation’s railway infrastructure in a more decentralized way.

Thousands of sensors have been deployed on railroad tracks across the country to monitor things like air and to track temperature and stress meters. The introduction of IP networks will enable the deployment of NRT to several hundred thousand or more. In practice, this will have a major impact on how to manage and operate the railway, Nash said. Take as an example the maintenance of overhead power lines on some networks.

Prior to this, the technical staff of the railway network had to spend a lot of time on routine maintenance inspections of the track.

However, Nash said: “It is no longer economically feasible for individuals to go on an inspection track. We need to change to centralized facilities, which means we need to be able to remotely view the operation of the railway.”

A sensor that can warn potential problems with the centralized console will make this idea workable. It can even save lives, Nash said.

“We have a huge amount of concerns that need to be taken care of. If we can use a fully digital service to run the railroads instead of having people walk the track, it will definitely save costs and add security to the work of our employees,” he said. Say.

This off-track network will enable NRT to provide an intelligent infrastructure from rail to train, providing track status data, such as faults or obstacles, to improve the safety of passengers and rail patrols. Other access devices will independently measure such indicators as water level through networked sensors. Water level is one of the factors that determine whether the embankment of a railway is flooded or not. At the same time, ground sensors will detect landslides or landslides.

The flat line pattern recognition technology will move the train along the track to generate image sequences, input visual and statistical data for asset and track maintenance systems, real-time monitoring of orbits, level crossings, adjustment of switches, defects, and joint status.

At present, the inspection of railway conditions consumes 1.3 million man-hours a year. NTR believes that flat-line pattern recognition technology will cut this figure by nearly half.

The development of the Internet of Things also has a significant impact on the traditional railway signal system - now the railway network has cut back on the remote signal box. In the near future, by dividing the railway into smaller rail segments or blocks, the railway network will be decoupled from traditional signals and turned to rely on an automated system deployed in the cab to control the speed and movement of the train, which passes through each At the time of the block, it constantly communicates with all other trains in the area.

NRT estimates that signals in locomotives may be up to 40% cheaper than traditional railroad-side signals, because the trains running at optimal speeds will allow more trains to get onto the rails, thereby increasing passenger capacity, reducing delays, and benefiting to avoid In an accident like the 1999 Ladbroke Grove crash, the train driver ignored a red track signal he hadn't noticed.

In addition to reducing the possibility of major railway accidents, the Internet of Things will also enhance the passenger experience in a more realistic way, Nash said.

“We want to know how many people are in each carriage and how they move around,” he said. "If you know people's position on the rail network and their journey, then you can better prepare for obstacles."

The data collected by surveillance video or station ticket gates can also serve the passengers themselves. NRT hopes to loop back real-time information to passengers through the smartphone's journey planning process.

There are other potential uses, such as which car to use or where to stand on the platform to make it easier to transfer at destination. This service already exists on the London Underground, although it is not provided by the London Transport Authority.

For supplier Cisco, the opportunities and challenges posed by the scale of the NTR nationwide network coexist, said Stephen Goodman, chief technology officer for industry and infrastructure.

"From our perspective, cooperation with NTR has led us to concrete our own strategy and decided to provide connectivity in a very unfavorable remote environment," he said. "This gives us a real-world use case. And they are constantly making use cases that we never thought about."

The security-critical nature of NTR's work also requires Cisco to be extremely careful when it comes to testing and certifying network products. "You can't just place the product on both sides of the track," Goodman said. "You have to go through rigorous testing and approval procedures. It may take six to nine months just to get equipment approved for railroad use."

Nationwide networking will also allow NRT to explore new ways to develop commercial applications and enter rural areas where telecom operators will not go, so there will also be room for using fiber optic networks to supply broadband service providers, similarly, with 4G handsets. Launched, NTR can also reach places that operators can't reach.