Research on technical and legislative aspects of the “intelligent End of Train” system

Abstract

The deployment of digital technologies on the railway, especially the widespread deployment of the ETCS system at the L2 application level, enables direct control of railway vehicles, i.e. vehicles are permanently connected by a radio system with the infrastructure interlocking system. One of the expected benefits of using these technologies, in addition to increasing safety, is the possibility of increasing the capacity and usability of the railway infrastructure, as well as reducing investment costs for technologies (infrastructure occupancy detection devices and signaling) currently installed in the infrastructure. However, to replace these technologies, the information about the position of each train must be available, both its front (today provided by the ETCS mobile part) and its end of the train. The paper presents the main outputs of the TACR project – CK04000156 “INTELIGENT_END4TRAIN”, which carried out research into the possibility of detecting the integrity of a freight train based on monitoring pressure conditions in the main brake pipe. The research focused on the implementation and operational verification of the Intelligent Train End measurement system and the examination of operational aspects on the basis of which it would be possible to evaluate information about the integrity of the train.