Railway input to UK Spectrum Policy Forum

Trevor Foulkes M.A., C.Eng., FIRSE, FIET

Head of CCS Eng, HS2 Ltd

Items to be covered

Scope of Railway Spectrum use

• Communication to Drivers in day to day and Emergency Situations

• Communications to on-track staff

• Communications to Signallers

• In cab signalling

What is the contribution of rail to the UK economy?

• Passenger journeys risen 115% in 20 years

• 70% increase over this time period in the amount of freight transported by rail.

• Employment for 212,000 people, gross value added £9.3bn/yr and provision of £3.9bn of tax revenue. – The tax contribution almost exactly offsets funding

provided by government to the industry;

• £13bn/yr in benefits to passengers and freight users;

• £10bn worth of additional productivity in the economy, which arises through the impact of the rail industry on other sectors of the economy.

See: http://www.oxera.com/getmedia/802a4979-8371-4063-ad24-8a81ed6c8f82/Contribution-of-rail-to-the-UK-economy-140714.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf

Current Position

• Until a few years ago the main line railways used the following systems:

• National Radio Network (~200MHz)

• Cab Secure Radio (~450MHz)

• Radio Electronic Block (~200MHz)

• Local UHF spot schemes

• GSM-R mandated and in use on some lines (~900MHz)

Current Position

• GSM-R installed on all GB Lines

• Operational mainly for voice

• Used for in-cab signalling (ETCS) on Cambrian Line

• NRN system turned off in South

• Train fitment continues. When complete NRN & CSR will be turned off.

UK Cab Radio Driver Interface

Sector Changes (Need)

• Passenger growth at 1.5%-2%/yr

• More lines use in cab signalling (ETCS)

• Passenger wifi and comms improvement

• More machine to machine communications

• Smarter systems and more data

• Increasing reliance on radio communications

• New lines e.g. HS2

More communication to trains

Sector Changes (Technology)

• Need for better radio bricks

• Better co-ordination over GSM-R band

• Need to enhance passenger communications

• GSM-R will become life expired

Use of Technology & Spectrum

• GSM 2+ technology at 900MHz

• Analogue radio at 450MHz

• Back to back UHF radios

• Lots of public operator service for management and email

Immediate Changes

• Use of GPRS to support in-cab signalling

• Significant roll-out of in-cab signalling

• Improvements for passenger communications

– Probably public service

– Gateways on train for wifi & speech

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Expected Changes for 2025 onwards

European Initiatives• Very early stages at looking at successor to

GSM-R

• Applications have longer life than bearer network – some mandated by European Law

• Exploring if different bearer systems on different lines

• No firm commercial or operation model defined

• Solution will have to consider mission criticality of radio bearer for ETCS

Split of Bearer and Application

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Railway Operations

Radio Bearer

Applications

Communications Services

Bearer Independent requirements

Our overall conclusion is that it is possible for commercial mobile broadband networks to be used for mission critical purposes

if five conditions are met in

full.The following slides expand on these five conditions.

1. Behaviour of MNOs

First the behaviour of commercial MNOs must be constrained to provide the services needed by mission critical users while preventing the use of “lock in” techniques to take unfair advantage of this enhancement of the MNOs’ market power and social responsibility. Such changes include not just stronger commitments to network resilience, but the acceptance of limits on price increases and contract condition revisions, ownership continuity assurances, and a focus on quality of service for priority mission critical traffic. Equally important for long-term relationships will be the mission critical services’ perception of MNO behaviour and performance. For that, measures will be needed that go beyond service level agreements (SLAs) at a commercial contract level: new regulations regarding commercial MNOs services must be enforced by each Member State’s national regulatory agency (NRA).

2. Reliability & Coverage

Commercial networks have to be “hardened” and modified to provide over 99% availability with a target of “five nines”. Geographic coverage must also be extended as needed for mission critical purposes and indoor signal penetration improved at agreed locations.

3. Reasonable cost

All this network hardening and extended coverage, along with the addition of essential mission critical functions and resilience, must be accomplished at reasonable cost. No more should be spent on the expansion and hardening of commercial networks for mission critical use than it would cost to build a dedicated national LTE network for that purpose. (One of our findings is that modifying existing commercial networks would in most cases be much less expensive than building a dedicated network.)

4. Meet user requirements

Hardened LTE networks must be able provide the different types of service required by each of the three sectors. Each sector uses broadband in quite different ways. That is, not just for streaming video, image services and database access, as in PPDR, but for very low-latency telemetry and real-time control for utilities and transport. In the five network options examined in Chapter 4, accommodating the needs of the different sectors becomes easier as one moves from TETRA to LTE and then to more complex hybrid configurations.

5. Member State Preferences

However, there is a further high barrier: will commercial mobile networks be able to overcome ingrained Member State preferences for state controlled networks for applications that implicate public safety? This is not simply a legal, regulatory or economic question. Some Member States have specific histories of state control as part of their culture, traditions and politics, not to mention investments in current technologies with long payback cycles. Thus some Member States may want to continue using dedicated networks in the short and medium term even if they cost more – examples are Germany, Italy and France for PPDR. However, it cannot be said that they will always ignore cheaper alternatives. The MNOs may need to be more persuasive in putting forward their advantages. In the meantime, it must be left to Member States to choose.

Possible Future

• The five conditions above are met and some train services use public networks

• Perhaps share with blue light or PPDR

• Some use a dedicated railway network

• Will depend on Member States views

Possible UK view

• If OFCOM wish to follow the SCF suggestions then use public networks for voice communications

• If not then, probably, LTE in dedicated spectrum in 700MHz, 400MHz or the R-GSM and ER-GSM bands.

• Would love an ETCS optimised radio (very reliable and robust) for 10-20kbit/s at 500kph