Proceedings 2002/2003 - IRSE

84
International Convention
held in
Sydney, Australia
29th April – 3rd May 2002
‘Cerberus’
Level Crossing Monitor and Test System –
a ‘black box recorder’ for Railway Level Crossings
Paul Szacsvay 1
SUMMARY
Monitoring and logging the performance of critical
systems is a practice which is well known in the
airline industry, and has long been commonplace in
locomotives in the rail industry. In the past two
decades advances in digital technology has made
the technology cost effective for adoption in other
industries, railway signalling among them.
From its conception in 1988, the Rail Infrastructure
Corporation has developed its ‘Cerberus’ level
crossing monitoring and test system into a mature,
safety-validated and fully featured monitoring
system for level crossing protection equipment,
complete with real-time reporting of fault conditions
and facilities to complete the daily crossing test
traditionally carried out in New South Wales by
individual contractors.
While it is based on a standard RIC data acquisition
module, the monitor incorporates novel
purpose-designed interface hardware and software.
INTRODUCTION
Since their introduction 50 years ago in the airline
industry, ‘black box’ recorders have become a
familiar concept in everyday language. There can be
few who are not aware of the importance attached to
finding the flight recorders after a crash, to deter-
1 Rail Infrastructure Corporation of NSW
mine the sequence of events that led up to it.
In railway operations, too, there has been a longstanding
need for accurate information on what was
happening at the time of a reported incident. In New
South Wales, accidents between road vehicles and
trains at level crossings are one of the major causes
of railway related death and injury. Correspondingly,
level crossing incidents are a major source of
investigations, inquests, and occasional damages
claims involving the railway operator.
Developed in-house by the Rail Infrastructure
Corporation, the ‘Cerberus’ Level Crossing Monitor
system, is a state of the art 'black box recorder' for
railway level crossings. Besides logging level crossing
events, it monitors level crossing operation,
remotely tests the level crossing battery, and reports
level crossing status to a central location.
BACKGROUND
On the RIC network in New South Wales, there are
over 320 level crossings equipped with active
protection in the form of flashing lights, and in some
cases boom gates. The protection is designed and
arranged in accordance with the requirements of
Australian Standard AS1742, Manual of Uniform
Traffic Control Devices, Part 7, Railway Crossings.
These level crossing protection devices are
essentially non-failsafe in their operation, unlike the
equipment which controls them. They depend on the
illumination of normally dark signal lamps to provide
a warning indication, and on the road users'
response to the signal, to halt safely clear of the rail
crossing. The safe operation of the level crossing
protection therefore depends completely on the
reliable functioning of the level crossing lamps,
batteries and battery charger.