UK Spectrum Policy Forum Cluster 1: Transportation - 11 December 2014 Trevor Foulkes, Head of Signalling and Telecommunications, HS2 Ltd Radio communications for Railways from 2020 More information at: http://www.techuk.org/about/uk-spectrum-policy-forum All rights reserved

1. Railway input to UK Spectrum
Policy Forum
Trevor Foulkes M.A., C.Eng., FIRSE, FIET
Head of CCS Eng, HS2 Ltd

2. Items to be covered

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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)

6. 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.

8. UK Cab Radio Driver Interface

9. 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

10. More communication to trains

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 14
Expected Changes for 2025
onwards

15. 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

16. Split of Bearer and Application
16
Railway Operations
Radio Bearer
Applications
Communications
Services
Bearer
Independent
requirements

17. 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.

18. 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).

19. 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.

20. 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.)

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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

24. 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