NGTC

Next Generation of Train Control Systems for a Sustainable Surface Transport and Successful Modal Shift

The NGTC consortium is made up of all the main rail system signalling suppliers, together with mainline operators and infrastructure managers as well as urban rail operators.

Both urban and main line operators will work to identify the requirements for all types of lines, spotting synergies and divergences of both systems in terms of hardware platforms, architecture and system designs. These results will lead to a new architecture definition that will be built around the standardised ETCS Baseline 3 system, with the requirement of backward compatibility.

The main scope of NGTC was to analyse the commonality and differences of the required functionality of both ETCS and CBTC systems, and to determine the level of commonality of architecture, hardware platforms and system design that can be achieved. The project does not seek to develop a system of -one size fits all-, but to make progress for all railway domains in terms of increasing the commonality in system design and hardware, with various benefits such as:

• increasing economies of scale for suppliers,
• offering customers the benefit of being able to chose the most competitive supplier, based on standardised functions and interfaces

Other topics that NGTC will address in detail are: enhanced and unified Moving Block principles, the usage and developments of the IP-based Radio Communications, several possible uses of satellite-related technologies, etc.

More information: www.ngtc.eu