Reliable mobile communication systems have emerged the key enablers to support mission-critical services, operation assistance services and passenger services in the global railway landscape. Several railway organizations around the world are looking to migrate from the existing communication technologies to the advanced ones, in order to meet their current and future requirements. The Indian Railways is all set to provide LTE (Long Term Evolution) based Mobile Train Radio Communication (MTRC) on its routes. Aligned with its vision, the Indian Govt. has already allocated 5 MHz spectrum to the Indian Railways for the installation of an ultra-high-speed LTE-based wireless communication corridor along the country’s rail-network. The LTE-based MTRC will empower the Indian Railways with secure and reliable voice, video and data communication services for smoother operations and better safety and security applications. The next-gen MTRC system will facilitate seamless communication between loco pilots and guards to bolster modern signalling and train-protection systems. The LTE-R systems are compatible with modern train automation systems like European Train Control System (ETCS) or similar and are also interoperable with other legacy mobile communication systems like GSM and UMTS. Surely, with our home-grown technology and innovational agility, we’re not very far from having smart communication and train-protection solutions
Critical applications of LTE-R are:
- Mission-critical Passenger Safety Services and Applications through Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which is planned for upgradation to ETCS Level 2 in future
- Video Surveillance in trains along with Video Analytics for Passenger Security and Wi-Fi facility for Passenger Information System
- IoT-based Asset Reliability Monitoring through LTE
The LTE-R network architecture is divided into two parts, namely Radio Access Network (RAN) and Evolved Packet Core (EPC). The EPC communicates with packet data networks like the internet, private corporate networks and the IP multimedia subsystem. Enabling the radio communications between the mobile and the EPC, the RAN has sets of evolved base stations, called eNodeB or eNB, through which the User Equipment are linked to the LTE Core Network.
With modernization of its communication system on its entire network by implementing LTE-based MTRC, Indian Railways will surely be enriched with higher speed and enhanced safety, line capacity and reliability, leveraging on high-speed wireless voice and data communications inside trains, from trains to the ground and from trains to trains.
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