Metrolink peer review report - Ventura County Star

METROLINK COMMUTER RAIL SAFETY PEER REVIEW PANEL
Final Report – January 5, 2009
d. DigiCon Dispatch
DigiCon train dispatching system will no longer be supported by DigiCon effective December 31, 2008.
Issue Papers
Observation
The Panel believes that after December 31, 2008, SCRRA, through their signal engineering consultants, will be
able to maintain and modify the software specific to the Metrolink controlled and dispatched system.
Regarding the basic underlying DigiCon system, SCRRA may have enough spare parts to maintain the system
hardware until another system is in place. However, the system software will not have technical support and a
failure of the basic operating system is a concern. While SCRRA has redundancies built into the system, including
software backups, should a failure occur, the system would be obsolete and not supported with readily available
parts and services important to such a system.
Recommendation
The Panel recommends that plans to transition from the DigiCon system should move forward as soon as
possible. In addition, a written action plan should be in place for the period from January 1, 2009 until a new
dispatching platform is in place for maintenance and other emergencies specific to the non-supported portion of
the system.
Background
As of December 31, 2008, DigiCon will no longer provide technical support for the Digital Traffic Control
operating system currently used by Metrolink to dispatch and control trains within its operating territory. As a
result, Metrolink will no longer receive the support for the basic software that is the observation for this system.
The overall system combines the DigiCon operating system as an observation with a separate program that
contains the signal and operational logic specific to the Metrolink system. SCRRA does not own the source code
that is the fundamental operating environment for the system, but does own its Metrolink -specific dispatching
software application. DigiCon has offered to sell a copy of the source code for the system. The asking price began
at approximately $60 million and has now dropped to $10 million.
There is concern within the SCRRA operations group about the ability of Metrolink to maintain the DigiCon
system adequately after December 31, 2008. This concern is based on the fact, again, that SCRRA does not own
the source code for the dispatching system and that this will create a serious dispatching issue if the system fails.
In addition, the operations group does not appear to have a complete understanding on how the dispatching
system will be updated with the advent of the enhanced Orange County Metrolink service as well as the numerous
other projects currently underway.
The Panel held a subsequent discussion with SCRRA’s Manager, Communication and Signal Engineering (C&S),
regarding this issue. The SCRRA engineering group has actions in place to transition to a different dispatching
system platform. The current plans are to transition to a new platform with the change to PTC. This group is in
the process of developing a Request for Proposals for such a system.
The software concern is primarily regarding the basic platform. Metrolink incorporates within the DigiCon
environment separate software containing the logic and operational map of the Metrolink system. As upgrades
are made to the system, the C&S group, through its signal engineering consultants, updates the logic sequence
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