Scope and Name of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee

RISSB has the following standing committees:

  • Rolling Stock
  • Operations
  • Infrastructure
  • Train Control
  • Safety.

However, the scope of each standing committee is not defined. A lack of scope definition can lead to things ‘falling between the cracks’.

Scope of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee

The context of the control system within the railway system is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Control System within the Railway System [1, Fig. 2-5]
Used with permission.

The subsystems within the railway control system are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Subsystems within the Railway Control System [1, Fig. 2-7]
Used with permission.

The subsystems within the train control system are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Subsystems within the Train Control System [1, Fig. 4-5]
Used with permission.

Which of the subsystems shown in Figures 1 to 3 should be within the scope of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee?

Figure 1 simply provides context for Figure 2.

Looking at Figure 2, I suggest that the train control subsystems are uncontroversially within the scope of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee – i.e.:

  • Signalling systems
  • Train operation systems (e.g. automatic train operation)
  • Service control systems (e.g. automatic route setting)
  • Telecommunications, radio, data transmission.

I suggest that the following station control / line control subsystems are also uncontroversially within the scope of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee:

  • CCTV
  • Information display (staff & passenger)
  • Public address
  • Voice communications
  • Asset monitoring & management.

The remaining station control / line control subsystems are a bit more controversial:

  • Revenue collection
  • Fire detection, suppression & ventilation control
  • Lifts, escalators, pumps, lights, power, etc.
  • Crowd control.

For the majority of railway stations and railway lines within Australia, most of these subsystems either do not exist or, if they do, are standalone systems. However, for some stations (e.g. new underground metro stations), these subsystems will be integrated into an overall control system (or, at least, remotely controlled from the control centre) for the purposes of emergency management, energy saving, etc. Some of these subsystems (especially fire detection, suppression, ventilation control, lifts, escalators and pumps) will already have relevant non-RISSB standards. I do not recommend that rail-specific standards are developed for the whole of these subsystems. However, I do recommend that the rail-specific requirements for these subsystems are included within RISSB standards with a cross-reference to the non-RISSB standards. Of these rail-specific requirements, I recommend that the ones relevant to railway control systems engineers are incorporated into the suite of standards developed and managed by the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee.

For network control systems, the service control systems and crowd control have already been discussed. However, network planning (e.g. timetables, rolling stock diagrams, crew diagrams and possession plans) may involve an interface between network planning software/processes and the train control systems. I recommend that this interface is within the scope of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee.

Figure 3 simply provides further detail for some of the subsystems shown in Figure 2.

In summary, I recommend that the control system portion of all of the subsystems shown as part of the railway control system in Figure 2 are the scope of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee.

Name of the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee

The recommended scope of the (currently named) RISSB Train Control Standing Committee goes beyond what is required for the control of trains to also include control of the network, stations and lines.

The collective term for these subsystems used in [1] is ‘railway control system’. However, is there a more appropriate collective term?

Rail Safety National Law uses the terms:

  • signalling systems
  • communications systems
  • rolling stock control systems
  • train control systems
  • data management systems.

However, it uses these terms as part of defining the collective term ‘rail infrastructure’, which is too broad for our purposes. Also, Rail Safety National Law is principally concerned with items that affect safety, whereas the subsystems we are interested in also include items relating to efficiency and effectiveness. Of note, it identifies ‘train control systems’ as being distinct from ‘signalling systems’ and ‘communication systems’.

EN 50126 Railway Applications – The Specification and Demonstration of Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety (RAMS) uses the term ‘command, control and signalling’, but does not define what this means.

The Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (the professional body) uses various terms:

It can be seen that the IRSE currently has little consistency in their terminology.

In summary:

  • The recommended scope of the (currently named) RISSB Train Control Standing Committee goes beyond what is required for the control of trains to also include control of the network, stations and lines.
  • I suggest that a suitable term that covers the recommended scope of the (currently named) RISSB Train Control Standing Committee is ‘railway control systems’. However, in the context of RISSB, I suggest that the word ‘railway’ is a tautology.
  • Therefore I recommend that the RISSB Train Control Standing Committee is renamed to ‘RISSB Control Systems Standing Committee’.

[1] D. Woodland, “Optimisation of automatic train protection systems,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Mech. Eng., Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 2004. [Online]. Available: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/14543/1/531116.pdf. Accessed: June 6, 2020.

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