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Is the rest of Europe out of step?
Round about May we will get the third report of the National ERTMS Programme (NEP) team. But in the meantime, an appendix to the Signalling Review Consultation document, which was contributed by the NEP, provides a sneak preview of progress or otherwise.
We must always remember that ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management system) is not a fully fledged technical solution but a political construct. The European Commission wants freight traffic, especially, to run across the European rail network without having to change traction or drivers at borders. It also wants to wake up the moribund national railways by introducing more open access competition.
ERTMS is the overall control system. ETCS – the European Train control system – provides the common signalling system which frees trains and drivers from the constraints of national signalling systems.
ETCS is also intended to break the monopolies of the quasi-nation signalling equipment suppliers. By having standard kit, so the argument goes, signalling becomes a commodity and an infrastructure operator can go to the cheapest supplier. This will also drive the economies of scale.
But back to the Appendix. NEP says that the UK rail industry should j oin with other Member States ‘in pressing suppliers for reductions in cost' of the technology, particularly train borne equipment. This is needed, says NEP to improve the private sector ‘bankability' of ERTMS and, in turn, would reduce the dependency on ‘uncertain' cost benefit analyses which attempt to put a value on capacity and performance improvements.
And that sums up the problem with ETCS. From the Railways' viewpoint, existing signalling works fine; all ETCS does, until the economies of scale kick in, is do the same thing more expensively. The EC has already accepted that it will have to subsidise at least 50% of the cost of fitting track and trains.
There is more from NEP. In addition to cost reduction, industry should also press for ‘long term improvements' to system functionality. The example quoted is a reduction in track based train detection. Such improvements would improve the cost/benefit ratio and deliver ‘the full potential of the core technology'.
Then, NEP gets really radical, The Appendix proposes that the European Commission should be pressed ‘to rationalise the current multi-supplier, multi-design procurement strategy, reflecting the limited size of the market and driving standardised and interchangeable designs at very much lower cost than the current situation'.
What on earth do they mean by ‘multi-supplier, multi-design'? The whole point of ETCS has been ‘form/fit/function'. In other words, manufacturers build-up there systems from standard interchangeable ‘equipment boxes', each box carrying out a specific function.
Balise interrogation boxes from Siemens and Alcatel will look the same, apart from the logo, have identical mounting brackets and cable interfaces: if you apply the same input you get an identical output. Well, in theory.
But while functionally interchangeable, the technology inside the boxes would be manufacturer specific. And safety validated to common standards.
This dream has proved difficult to realise, particularly with the on-train equipment. NEP appears to be arguing for either all the signalling majors to manufacture to a common design with shared software or for the number of manufacturers to be reduced. Given the Britain hasn't even got a test route running yet, this hectoring from Europe's offshore island is not going down well.
But now we come to the real Alice in Wonderland bit. Having argued that the limited size of the market justifies rationalised procurement with less competition and more standardisation, the NEP suggests that procurement of equipment for the Cambrian Coast trial installation ‘should open the supplier list to worldwide competition'.
Whoever wrote this appendix is either out of touch with reality or suffering from advanced OBRPS (Old BR Procurement Syndrome). Cambrian Coast is a trial installation, for heaven's sake, not an exercise in macho procurement.
NEP could negotiate a total package with one or manufacturers or consortium. Or you could mix and match, based on Alstom balises, say, which already drive the Pendolino Tilt Authorisation & Speed Supervision on the West Coast Main Line and have 2 million miles of operational experience. You might as well have two on board equipment suppliers, to see whether Form/Fit/Function works.
According to Railway Gazette International, out of 22 commercial ETCS projects in Europe , Alstom has sole responsibility for six, followed by Alacatel with three and Ansaldo with two. The consortia led schemes reveal rampant promiscuity, the most successful being Alcatel/Siemens with three schemes, one of which is a threesome with Invensis. Alstom/Alcatel have two
And a word of warning, most of the current ETCS Level 2 pilot projects use Version 2.2.2 of the systems requirements specification. This contains various errors and what are termed ‘open points'.
Solutions to 41 of these are priority fixes for Version 3 which is dues to be signed off by the end of this year. What sort of things are we talking about? Well, back when Moving Block for the WCML was all the rage, former IESE president Tony Howker kept on asking a simple question: how do trains know where they are after a system shut down? Presumably they all have to drive slowly to the next balise so that the RBC can rebuild its mental picture.
Well here's a version of that ‘cold movement detection'. A train's ETCS equipment is shut down in Bounds Green Depot. When it is switched on again, how does it know that it hasn't been towed ‘dead' overnight to Newcastle ?
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