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2Concepts for Safe Railway
Operation and Control
In general, a railway system can be divided in three components: [67, p. 94]
infrastructure
rolling stock
trackwork, signalling equipment, stations, and elements for the
electrical power supply 1
cars and locomotives
system of operating rules provides a set of operating rules and procedures to ensure safe 2
railway operation
Infrastructure and rolling stock can be interpreted as the hardware of a railway system while
the operating rules and procedures represent the software. Train control systems are typically
realised as software. They use the hardware of a railway system to ensure safe railway operation.
There exist various kinds of strategies for train control systems. A comprehensive description
of typically strategies can be found in [67].
The work presented in this dissertation focuses on Automatic Train Control (ATP) systems,
which cause an automatic train stop in the case that any active limits are overpassed. Those
limits can refer to the speed of the train or to a certain distance on the track. For ATP systems,
data transmission from track-to-train is always needed to inform the train about active limits.
Also, the precise determination of the train location on the track is needed for distance limits.
More sophisticated ATP systems also use data transmission from train-to-track to inform a
control centre about the train status. There exits two types of ATP systems:
• intermittent
• continuous
1 not always available
2 safe relates here to the avoidance of any possible incidences that could harm any human or the environment.
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