IEEE WG 3 Meeting of November 16, 1998

The meeting opened with introductions around the room of all of those in attendance. Handouts were the St. Louis meeting mark-up of the standard, Version 5M3 and the excerpt from those meeting minutes dealing with the event recorder standard.

Tom Mc Gean, chairman of the full standards balloting committee, gave brief report on the events of the meeting held in St. Louis. LSB recalled that there were a couple of contentious issues raised at the St. Louis meeting. These included the use of references to FRA, which appear throughout the document. Another was the issue of hardwired versus networked event recorder installations.

The resolution of these issues forms the agenda for this meeting and must be addressed. In addition the signal list must also be reviewed one more time.

LSB noted that for those comments which we do not incorporate as given, the group needs a clear position on how or why these issues not incorporated as suggested by the full ballot committee.

Mr. McGean noted to the group that the operating principle for the development of consensus standards is that they should not quote Federal Regulations. Public law 104113 instructs Federal regulating agencies to use consensus standards in the development of regulations when they are available. It could lead to a circular logic situation if FRA is referenced in a consensus standard. It was suggested that reference to FRA requirements could be included as notes to satisfy the committee’s concerns and to keep the history desired by the Working Group.

It was also noted by Mr. McGean that the NTSB has listed the development of an event recorder standard as their #1 priority.

It was noted that if this group can get this document finished today, it will go through the ballot process by February 1999, and become an IEEE standard.

It was noted that the crashworthiness criteria in the FRA/RSAC draft are set at higher level than WG3 document is presently contemplating. There was some discussion about the level of crashworthiness requirements to be included in this document and confirmation that the WG considers them necessary. It is likely these will become the first approved industry standards on event recorders released to the public domain. The WG expressed willingness to modify or delete the requirements if future mechanical requirements become available as formal standards.

The group agreed that the levels presently in the WG3 document are appropriate for transit and light rail type vehicles along with multiple unit and commuter coaches. It was agreed that we would continue to use the NYCT specifications for crashworthiness as is presently shown in the draft document.

There was a discussion of the shock requirement for event recorders. There was a concern expressed that the 65 ms impact duration standard may be off by an order of magnitude. There was a lengthy discussion of how the impact shock should be specified.

It was agreed that the group establish a test criteria criteria of 4.6 G-seconds of impact energy imposed over a duration range of 20 ms to 100 ms. There was a discussion as to whether the test range above should be a range (as shown) or a single number. After a period of discussion, a vote was taken and the range approach passed. Dissenters to this vote were encouraged to comment on the Standard officially during the ballot process. It was agreed that an explanatory note describing several combinations of G load and time duration totaling to the 4.6 G-second requirement, would not be used.

It was noted that FRA/RSAC proposed requirements for water immersion and fire endurance are more stringent than the values in the WG3 document. It was agreed that the present IEEE requirement is more appropriate for transit type vehicles.

The discussion then moved to the removal of the reference to "FRA requirements" from the document.

It was noted that the FRA rules currently in effect for event recorders was the initial basis for the list of required signals. It was agreed that the reference to FRA in column three of Table 4.1-1 will become a note, as a piece of useful information to users. It was also agreed that it would be prudent to renumber Table 4.1-1 to a simple index, rather than the present system, which was based on the original FRA requirement, itself originally eight signals based on an eight track tape recorder. LSB took the action item to make this editorial change. It was agreed to modify paragraph 4.1 to make the references to the FRA a note. Much of this paragraph will become an explanatory note, not a part of the formal standard.

The next issue dealt with the robustness of the inputs to the recorder. Specifically the issue of taking a signal from as close to the source as possible as mentioned in section 4.1. It was noted that with network implementation, the network must be redundant or there must be continuous verification of the integrity of the network.

It was noted that, if a network is utilized to transmit event recorder input signals, a network health status signal must be one of the recorded signals. This was agreed to and will become signal #19 (after renumbering) on table 4.1-1. This results in a change to the third sentence of the second paragraph of 4.1-1 to "If signals are transmitted over a network, the event recorder system shall be able to determine from the recording if and when there has been a network failure".

The group then took up the issue of clarifying the meaning of the term "train time", as shown in Table 4.1-1. It was agreed that this item would remain on the list of required signals, although the wording will be edited for clarification.

It was agreed to remove the note about deriving brake valve position.

It was agreed that items in Table 4.1-2, R7, R18 and R18a will be moved to Table 4.1-1 and become required signals, where the item is installed on a unit of rolling stock. Signal R27 from Table 4.1-2 was not moved to the required list because the ATC cut-out switch is always a sealed switch which can be inspected after the fact, in the event of an incident.

The paragraph after table 4.1-2 will become the footnote for Table 4.1-1 item 2.

The first paragraph of 4.2 was changed slightly to say that the "event recorder shall be capable of sampling signals at a maximum rate of...".

Comment #7 from the St. Louis minutes was incorporated.

For paragraph G of 4.3.1, it was agreed to strike sentence #2. Leave sentence #1 as is.

Comment #8 was incorporated.

LSB will discuss the 1000 VDC voltage requirement and the EMI requirement with J. Ronalter and edit as agreed. Specific comments from WG members are requested in response to the ballot.

It was agreed that event recorders should not be required to operate at input signals greater than 100 volts. The event recorder shall protect itself from voltages greater than 150 volts.

It was agreed to remove all Y2K references from the Standard document because the timing of its publication will make the issue moot.

This completed the editorial changes to the document. At the conclusion of the meeting, LSB agreed to complete all the editorial changes to the Standard and E-mail and fax it to this group for one final review prior to sending it to ballot.

The meeting concluded with the thanks of the Chairman for the participation of all in bringing this Standard to this point.

The time, place and agenda of future meeting (to resolve any comments made in response to the ballot) will be determined at a later time.