COALA.NT - Conflict Avoiding Low Cost Application by using New Technologies

Safety of railway operation is provided by procedures and regulations on main lines as well as on branch lines. Operation and technical safety are usually based on interlockings as central operational components and an outdoor-equipment, which supplies the appropriate information for the interlocking on the one hand and on the other hand signalizes the travel permission to the engine driver.

Such safety systems are expensive due to the quality and safety requirements and are therefore being totally or partly replaced by specific operational procedures on routes with small traffic volume. For such branches, which have a small traffic volume and frequently are not even equipped with interlockings, the economical benefit of the application of sophisticated high-end-technology usually cannot be demonstrated, the application of ETCS (European Train Control System) is not probable as well.

COALA.NT’s task is to prevent and detect on-line conflicts through the application of GNSS, which result from the temporally and locally simultaneous use of lines by several train movements. Nowadays the conflict detection often is done statically in the operational part of fleet management systems or in control centers.

The information system primarily has the following tasks:

• Indication of the current driving permissions given by the operator of the control centre
• Indication of track occupancy and vacancy messages
• In-time indication of a conflict, which could result from a potential human failure (e.g. driving on non-released sections)

Coordinator

Siemens AG Österreich, Bereich TS RA&P ML - Otto Rohm

Partners

• GKB Graz Köflacher Eisenbahn - Rudolf Kores
• FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH - Anna Koubek, Markus Tomaschitz

Siemens AG Österreich, Bereich TS RA&P ML
Otto Rohm
Leberstraße 34
A-1110 Vienna
E-mail: otto.rohm@siemens.com
Web: www.siemens.at