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resource sharing between trains

hi, i would like some expert information from the railway community regarding likely candicates for information passing between trains and a control centre, as i am currently working on my dissertation for my msc in critical software engineering degree.

as part of the system i am building i aim to model in software a number of trains and a control centre. the aim is for the trains to communicate with the control centre simulataneously in a transaction.

A transaction is a number of related logical operations grouped together so as to become indivasable such as crediting a bank balance i.e. read balance, increment balance and finally write new balance - all seen as one operation - "credit account".

the help i need is to identify a feasable resource which the trains would like to use from the control centre. this would be something that the control centre has and that trains would like to use, some sort of information.

identifying this information without contriving it is proving an unexpected major headache.

thanks in advance

mark laird lancaster university

Reply to
mark
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write passable English, Any variant dialect is OK.

John H

Reply to
John H

Railway communications is pretty much all one way. Either timetable and train order or signals tell the trains when they can go and when to enter sidings to clear other trains. Communications back to the dispatcher are only informative (getting the word back to the disp. faster than going to a trackline telephone) of when accidents and so forth happen on the road. Recent usage of feed back communications has increased a bit bot mostly tends to be talking of where on the road that they are and why they don't have the signal to proceed.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

Rather more to it than that these days, the trains I work with on my day job are in continuous communication with the control centre, in fact if they lose communication for more than 3 seconds they stop. Information sent from control centre to train includes the following: Permitted direction of travel Maximum permitted speed Target speed for next speed restriction Distance permitted to travel Brake rate to use Average grade for section ahead Precise stopping position at next station Which side to open doors at next station Destination to be shown on front Message to be announced on train PA Current time and date (to synchronise fault logs)

Information sent from train to control centre includes: Train identity Actual direction of travel Actual speed Current position of train Status of doors Status of emergency brake Status of various other fault alarms

Keith

Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

Reply to
Keith Norgrove

They don't use capital letters there, I take it?

Reply to
Mark Mathu

Commuter trains have definitely changed! It used to be that they just ran down the track at whatever speed that they found necessarry to maintian the timetable times. Truth of the matter is that it is only the high density commuter trains that have gotten to this level of contact between the base computer and the train itself.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

Take it easy on the poor kid. He probably hasn't had his remedial English class yet.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

If you read up on the computer aided despatching being tried out on US freight roads you will find a very similar level of communication being done through the radio system, not maybe at a 3 second frequency but equally safety critical, which was the enquirer's concern. Keith

Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

Reply to
Keith Norgrove

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