Fall-Back Mode Operation on Remotely Controlled Railway Lines

Abstract

This paper deals with handling abnormal situations raised on remotely controlled railway lines, in particular how to maintain an automatic operation that is a core function of such systems. Unlike conventional traffic control, in case of remotely controlled stations the operational personnel is not located on the stations, thus nobody can intervene in the railway traffic locally, if necessary. In addition, replacing staff with technical devices and automatism makes the number of potential failure modes even higher. The most critical event happens when the data connection between the control centre and the station is lost, so that the human supervision of the traffic terminates. This paper presents the human, technological and technical aspects of treating such failures and offers some potential solutions in order to maintain railway traffic and minimize disturbances.