Eulynx

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EULYNX is an organization of Western European railway infrastructure operators for the development and provision of uniform industrial standards for new modular interlocking technology . It was created in continuation of a project started in 2014 with the support of the European Railway Agency (ERA) by originally six companies.

By the beginning of 2018, the number of members had risen to twelve companies.

Business goals

The cooperating infrastructure companies have national government responsibilities for the provision of the railway infrastructure. With the dissolution of the historical, universal state railway companies supported by the European Union (EU), the infrastructures remained with the respective national authorities. As sovereign areas of responsibility, these were initially excluded from the EU regulations. However, it quickly became apparent that the cross-border use of the locomotives meant that the historical national standards had to be standardized. The EU has therefore designed a European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) for establishing interoperability. The first two subsystems are the GSM-R communication system and the European Train Control System (ETCS). Both establish the connection between the vehicles and the fixed infrastructure. Now the infrastructure operators had to develop technical couplings with their respective suppliers to connect the new ERTMS communication with their permanently installed systems. With the many historical installations, this was both time-consuming and costly; often associated with a complete replacement of the old technology. At the same time, a large proportion of passenger and freight traffic was lost due to inexpensive and flexible road traffic.

The signaling industry has been implementing complex traffic management systems under the English term Communication-Based Train Control (CBTC) for a long time, which control local rail passenger transport ( subway , S-Bahn , tram ) in urban areas . They actually served the same purpose as the systems funded by ERTMS, but only had internal interfaces of the supplier and no general railway approval . Your advantage consists in lower prices, shorter delivery times and almost any coupling with other business applications of the operator. The long-term ties to system suppliers as a monopoly and the difficult integration of third-party installations are viewed as disadvantageous.

All infrastructure operators were faced with the task of making use of the possibilities of further technical developments since the beginning of the 1990s in the field of industrial automation , information technology , power electronics and communication . This is the result of new requirements from rail customers as well as the competitive situation with regard to prices and implementation speed. The previous interlockings were far too expensive and inflexible to configure. In addition, there were very long planning times, long conversion times, problems in spare parts inventory and in the special qualifications for operation and maintenance.

The suppliers also saw an opportunity by opening up the market for standardized components and interfaces to both expand their own range and reduce their own range and be able to pursue more efficient further development. The interchangeability of elements between different manufacturers and different generations of devices is to be achieved through manufacturer-independent interface definitions.

Technical goals

Before 2014, through the development of ETCS and GSM-R, a lot of experience had been gained about how multinational developments in the EU take place and on how many circumstances success and project progress depend. In an evaluation of this, it was noticed that by excluding subjective political factors and working with objective technical methods of computer science, the standardization process had been significantly accelerated. During this period, computer science terms such as baseline played a new role in railway standards.

The Eulynx project has used a formal description language for interfaces and functions since the beginning . This means that they are logically clearly defined and can then be tested automatically.

The implementation of the new interlockings was based on technically advanced standards. There were already computer-controlled logic cores in the electronic signal box (ESTW). There were remote control devices that could operate points and signals at almost any distance from the interlocking, using a local, decentralized power supply. There were technical signal transmissions with high data rates and high specifications with regard to failure safety and signal integrity. There was the Internet of Things (IoT). From these existing methods and components, a uniform, modular system for interlockings was to be developed, which meets all requirements of safe railway operation .

To distinguish the new interlocking architecture from the previous electronic interlockings, DB Netz calls the Eulynx-based interlockings digital interlockings (DSTW), although the previous electronic interlockings also already use digital logic control.

history

The EULYNX project was started in 2014 by the railway infrastructure operators of the six EU countries Germany (DB Netz), Netherlands ( ProRail ), Belgium ( Infrabel ), France ( SNCF ), Luxembourg ( CFL ) and Great Britain ( Network Rail ).

The following additional countries had joined the organization by spring 2018:

The project was started in December 2017 with the release of the documents for the baseline 2 and will be continued as an organization from now on.

Support at the beginning of the work was ongoing projects of the International Union of Railways (UIC) since 2013 to create uniform standards for data exchange between the various service providers and the railway companies. As a result, a systematic topology model for railway infrastructure ( RailTopoModel ) was created to define the data that can be exchanged with the Railway Markup Language ( railML ), which has been developed since 2002 . With these standards, it is possible, the components of EULYNX-interlocking building blocks according to BSI Industry Foundation Classes represent and thereby the new computer-aided structure data modeling (engl. Building Information Modeling support, BIM). For this purpose, a general, transnational list of terms (Rail Data Dictionary) is being set up, which should contain all technical equipment and terms of the railway infrastructure (track, signals, energy supply, telecommunications).

Results

Germany

The founding member Deutsche Bahn contributed the results and resources of the NeuPro project ("New Production Processes "). According to the specifications, the NeuPro systems were in accordance with applicable European standards (EN), u. a. CENELEC to develop and provide evidence for the entire life cycle. The technical principles previously exclusively applicable in Germany for the approval of safety systems no longer apply.

The NeuPro project started in 2012. In the first two years (2012, 2013) the ability to develop a highly secure and fault-tolerant network protocol based on IP and to prove its functionality in the track area was determined. From 2013 to 2018 the NeuPro interfaces SCI-LS (for light signals ), SCI-TDS ( axle counters ) and SCI-P ( switches ) were developed. For this purpose, corresponding control devices (object controllers) were developed in which the coded control information to be exchanged with the remote interlocking is combined with a local energy supply to the connected sensors or actuators .

France

In France there has been an ARGOS project since 2018, with which the French infrastructure operator SNCF Réseau would like to procure a digital interlocking by tender. The organization EULYNX is not mentioned in the tender. So it remains to be seen to what extent the new French signal box technically corresponds to the DSTW.

Luxembourg

Luxembourg was the first country to switch its entire railway network to ETCS train control in mid-2017. The variant ETCS Level 1 Full Supervision (L1FS) according to SRS 2.3.0d was chosen. As in Spain , the equipment turned out to be very complex and not very flexible during operation. You can achieve a high level of safety with the driver's cab signaling, but the fixed route blocks do not increase route capacities. After having achieved the main goal of replacing the old train control , which is prone to errors , the system is now being optimized. The issuance of the ETCS driving permit is canceled in direct coupling of the light signal concept . The programmable balises should get their information directly from the Eulynx signal boxes. While the LEU were previously only able to transmit the respective signal aspect to the vehicles via the Eurobalises, the balises can now transmit complex telegrams to the traction vehicle for each individual train. By canceling the signal binding of the balises, you can do without pre-signals, reduce signals on open routes or increase the information density with additional balises. And vice versa, the locomotives should be able to send data telegrams to the interlocking. With the Eulynx-based interlockings ZSB 2000 from Scheidt & Bachmann, the aim is to introduce the interfaces for standardized route blocks (SCI-ILS) and for level crossings (SCI-LX). The implementation of the pilot project will start in 2020 on route 1 from Luxembourg to the north and should reach the Belgian border by 2023.

Norway

In May 2016, the infrastructure operator Bane NOR received permission from the Norwegian government to carry out a tender for the complete introduction of ETCS as a train control system. In April 2018, the partial infrastructure contract was awarded to Siemens and includes the line equipment for the entire 4200 km long network with 375 stations and new digital interlockings according to the Eulynx specification as well as maintenance over 25 years. The introduction should already start in 2018/2019.

Web links

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Elsweiler: Beyond ETCS - Interoperable Interfaces and more. (PDF; 6.1 MB) In: Website. Institution of Railway Signal Engineers, March 20, 2014, pp. 2–3 , accessed on March 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Landing Page. In: website. EULYNX, accessed March 11, 2018 .
  3. ↑ RTM - RailTopoModel. (No longer available online.) In: Website. International Union of Railways , archived from the original on April 3, 2018 ; accessed on April 3, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.railtopomodel.org
  4. ↑ RailTopoModel RTM. In: website. International Union of Railways , accessed April 3, 2018 .
  5. ↑ RailTopoModel takes a new turn in 2018. In: Website. International Union of Railways , February 6, 2018, accessed April 3, 2018 .
  6. ^ Hans Leister: ETCS and digital technology for interlockings. (PDF; 1 MB) In: Eisenbahn-Revue International . August 2017, pp. 417-422 , accessed on March 11, 2018 .
  7. ^ A b André Lisker, Kersten Kanis: Commissioning of the first digital interlocking for DB Netz AG . In: Your train . No. 8 , 2018, ISSN  0948-7263 , p. 24-29 .
  8. ↑ ARGOS: un partenariat d'innovation pour développer les postes d'aiguillage du futur. SNCF Réseau , 22 June 2018, accessed 5 October 2018 (French).
  9. ^ Lionel Arend, Laurent Pott, Nico Hoffmann, Ronny Schanck: ETCS Level 2 without GSM-R . In: signal + wire . tape 110 , no. 10 . DVV Media Group , Hamburg 2018, p. 18-28 .
  10. ↑ ERTMS roll-out funded . In: Railway Gazette International . tape 172 , no. 6 , 2016, p. 9 (under a similar title railwaygazette.com ).
  11. ↑ Siemens is digitizing the infrastructure of the Norwegian rail network. In: siemens.com. Siemens, April 6, 2018, accessed April 7, 2018 .