Integrated Public Mobile Radio Networks/Satellite for Future Railway Communications
- Resource Type
- Periodical
- Authors
- Mazzenga, Franco; Giuliano, Romeo; Neri, Alessandro; Rispoli, Francesco
- Source
- IEEE Wireless Communications IEEE Wireless Commun. Wireless Communications, IEEE. 24(2):90-97 Apr, 2017
- Subject
- Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Computing and Processing
Signal Processing and Analysis
Mobile communication
Satellite broadcasting
Railway communication
Cellular networks
Rail transportation
Europe
Government policies
- Language
- ISSN
- 1536-1284
1558-0687
The European train control system employs GSM-R for communications between trains and the command/control centers. GSM-R technology is quite old and will be replaced in the near future by other technologies offering less expensive solutions, especially for regional and local lines. This article investigates a new telecommunication solution based on multi radio bearers using cellular and satellite public networks as an alternative to the deployment of a dedicated infrastructure. A test campaign on a 300 km of rail line (about 10,000 km of tests) has been carried out to evaluate the performance of cellular and satellite networks in a railway environment. Test trial results presented and discussed in this article have been used to assess the performance of a multipath TCP protocol to effectively support multi-bearer communications. A discussion of the economic benefits and the potential industrial implications of the proposed solution concludes the article.