IEEE Rail Transit Vehicle Interface Standards Committee

 

MEETING OF WORKING GROUP #2

COMMUNICATION BASED TRAIN CONTROL

 

Date:   August 21, 2002 - 8:30 am

 

Place:            Parsons, 100 Broadway, New York, NY

 

Attendees:

 

Name

Representing

Email

Corinne Braban

Siemens

Corinne.braban@ts.siemens.fr

Pierre Brunet

Earth Tech

Pierre_Brunet@EarthTech.com

Fred Childs

PATH

fchilds@panynj.gov

Michael Crispo

CTA

mcrispo@transitchicago.com

Jim Dietz

LTK Engineering

jdietz@ltk.com

Tony Fedor

Times Microwave

tfedor@timesmicrowave.com

Harvey Glickenstein

PB

h.glickenstein@ieee.org

Seyed Hosseini

Metro North

hosseini@mnr.org

Geoff Hubbs

NYCT

gehubbs2@nyct.com

Ken Karg

Bombardier

kenneth.karg@us.transport.bombardier.com

John LaForce

SEPTA

jlaforce@septa.org

Sam Lott

JKH Mobility

Sam.lott@kimley-horn.com

Bob MacDonald

HNTB

rmacdonald@hntb.com

Dave Male

Systra

Dmale@systrausa.com

Norm May

Lea + Elliott

nmay@leaelliott.com

Bill Petit

Safetran

bill.petit@ieee.org

Alan Rumsey

Parsons

alan.rumsey@parsons.com

Errol Taylor

WMATA

etaylor@wmata.com

John Vogler

NJ Transit

jvogler@njtransit.com

Naor Wallach

Alstom

Naor.Wallach@transport.alstom.com

Robert Walsh

Bombardier

Robert.e.walsh@us.transport.bombardier.com

Firth Whitwam

Alcatel

Firth.Whitwam@tas.alcatel.com

Glen Winters

Lea + Elliott

gwinters@mta,hq.org

 

 

Minutes of Meeting:

 

 

1.                  HOUSEKEEPING ITEMS

 

1.1.            Introductions

 

Alan Rumsey welcomed participants to this meeting of Working Group #2 (WG2) of the Rail Transit Vehicle Interface Standards Committee (RTVISC), hosted by Parsons.

 

1.2.            Review of Previous WG2 Meeting Minutes

 

The minutes of the previous WG2 meeting held on May 30, 2002 were reviewed and accepted as written.

 

1.3.            Date/Location of Next WG2 Meeting

 

The next WG2 meeting will be held on November 1, 2002 in Oakland, California and will be hosted by BART (Bob Miller).

 

2.                  STATUS OF DRAFT D9.0 OF PROPOSED STANDARD 1474.2 “USER INTERFACE REQUIREMENTS IN CBTC SYSTEMS

 

2.1.               IEEE Editorial Review

 

Alan Rumsey advised that the IEEE editor had completed a pre-ballot review of the draft standard with only minor modification recommended.  These recommendations will be incorporated into draft D9.1, which will become the ballot version of the proposed standard 1474.2.

 

2.2.               Ballot Group

 

A provisional ballot group has been identified for 1474.2.  The WG2 chair will contact each participant to confirm their willingness to serve on the ballot group, and that they are members of the IEEE Standards Association.

 

3.                  UPDATES TO IEEE STD. 1474.1-1999 “CBTC PERFORMANCE AND FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS”

 

3.1.            Review of Changes to Section 4 (General Requirements)

 

Section 4 - as updated at the previous WG2 meeting to include other transit applications, such as automated people movers – was reviewed and additional changes identified, specifically with respect to subsection 4.5.1.2 (Failure mode operations in CBTC territory).  It was agreed to stress that the primary goal of the fall-back plan was to eliminate unacceptable hazards to passengers and staff.  It was also agreed to re-title section 4.6 as “Entering/exiting CBTC territory”.

 

3.2.            Review of Changes to Section 6.1 (ATP Functional Requirements)

 

Section 6.1 – as updated at the previous WG2 meeting – was reviewed and additional minor changes identified.  Specifically, it was agreed to expand section 6.1.2 to allow for automatic coupling, and to include consideration of platform edge door status in establishing movement authority limits.

 

3.3.            Line-by-Line Review of Section 6.2 (ATO Functional Requirements)

 

A line-by-line review of section 6.2 was completed and a number of changes were agreed to in order to accommodate operations without crews.  Specifically, the introductory paragraph will be updated to reflect that ATO functions are mandatory for operations without crews, and section 6.2.3 (Train door control) will be expanded to include consideration of platform edge doors.

 

3.4.            Line-by-Line Review of Section 6.3 (ATS Functional Requirements)

 

A line-by-line review of section 6.3 was completed and a number of changes were agreed to in order to accommodate operations without crews.  Specifically, the introductory paragraph will be updated to reflect that some level of ATS functionality is mandatory for operations without crews and the remaining subsections will be updated to clarify those functions that are considered mandatory.

 

4.            ANY OTHER BUSINESS

 

4.1.            Next Meeting Agenda

 

The agenda for the next WG2 meeting on November 1 will be to review changes incorporated into the draft standard as a result of agreements at this meeting, and to conduct a line-by-line review of section 5.3 (System safety requirements).

 

Alan Rumsey will reissue the draft standard (as draft D3.0), no later than October 15, 2002.  Any additional comments on draft D2.0 should therefore be forwarded to the WG2 chair no later than September 30, 2002.

 

4.2.            Funding for Agency Representatives Attending WG2 Meetings

 

With the transition of the RTVISC activities from the TRB to APTA, Jim Deitz advised that no funding was currently available to assist transit agency representatives attending WG2 meetings.  It was noted that the RTVISC OCS working groups have taken the initiative of establishing a fund, to be administered by APTA, whereby suppliers represented on the OCS working groups contribute limited funds to assist transit agency representatives attend OCS working group meetings. 

 

Efforts are underway to explore if additional funds can be made available through APTA in the future.

 

4.3.            APTA Rail Transit Standards

 

Bill Petit advised the WG that that the APTA Rail Transit Standards Operating Practices Committee was developing a standard for Operating Rules Pertaining to Rail Transit System Signals.  Section 7 of this draft standard briefly addresses advanced technology signal systems (such as CBTC).  The draft standard will be posted on the www.tsd.org web site for the information of WG2 members.

  

4.4.            University of Virginia

 

Bill Petit advised the WG that the University of Virginia had established a Center of Rail Safety-Critical Excellence, supporting the FRA and transit.  APTA’s Lou Sanders is on the Advisory Board.

 

4.5.            Project Updates

 

Brief project updates were provided on the NYCT, SEPTA and BART CBTC programs.

 

4.6.            Shared Radio Communication Link for CBTC

 

The potential use of a CBTC train-to-wayside data communication link to transmit other non-train control data (such as video) was briefly discussed by WG2 participants.

 

The general consensus was that this is less a technical issue, and more an "institutional" issue.

 

For train control, there are three characteristics of the datalink that are considered important:

 

a)      Bandwidth (the amount of data that needs to be transferred)

 

b)      Message latency  (the maximum communication delay that can be tolerated by the train control system in delivering a message in order to meet the overall system performance requirements, in terms of headway and travel times).

 

c)      Message delivery reliability (the tolerance of the train control system to short term interruptions in data communications).

 

"Safety" is not a specific issue as such, since it is the vital processors at each end of the datalink that assure the safety of the train control system which is required to "fail safe" in the event of corrupted or loss of data.

 

With respect to bandwidth, it was the general view of WG2 that this is becoming less of an issue with newer technology i.e. it is possible to provide a datalink with sufficient bandwidth to support both train control and non-train control functions.  The "institutional" issue is "who controls the allocation of bandwidth", and how do you assure that in the future, bandwidth that had been reserved for train control purposes is not re-assigned to other non-train control uses.

 

Also of concern with a shared datalink is controlling message priorities, particularly with train control systems that rely on a polled communications protocol, to ensure acceptable train control message latency and message delivery reliability.  Again, the issue here is less that of designing an acceptable shared datalink on day one, but more the institutional issue of managing the configuration control of a shared datalink over time.

 

4.7.            2003 CBTC Conference

 

Alan Rumsey advised the WG that the next Railway Age/Parsons CBTC Conference would be held in Washington on May 7/8, 2003.

 

 

Minutes prepared by:

 

Dr. Alan F. Rumsey

WG2 Chair