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ERTMS Level 3: the Game-Changer (2017)

This paper was presented by Nicole Furness (Network Rail) and colleagues from ProRail in London as part of the Presidential Programme of technical papers for 2017-18, and was published in IRSE NEWS April 2017.

Our railways are full. Our networks do not currently have enough capacity to meet our customer needs. In Great Britain for example passenger numbers have doubled since 1996 and are set to double again over the next 25 years. It is not possible to meet projected demand with existing technologies.

Conventional lineside signalling systems have been optimised to their limits. In many locations the use of conventional methods to increase capacity such as building extra tracks, flyovers and introducing larger trains has been exhausted. But there is an alternative – use of digital technology. This provides a great
opportunity to deliver increased capacity for our networks.

A key digital technology which can provide this is ERTMS. Currently most worldwide implementations of ERTMS are of ETCS Level 1 and ETCS Level 2 systems. Of these it is ETCS Level 2 which can, with careful implementation, provide improvements in capacity. To get significant improvements in
capacity from ETCS Level 2 means increasing the amount of trackside train detection systems. This is clearly technically feasible, but is it affordable?

Moving to ERTMS Level 3 solves this problem. ERTMS Level 3 can deliver better capacity, reduce costs, improve flexibility and increase reliability in comparison with ERTMS Level 2, removing reliance on train detection equipment. During European level discussions on the ERTMS long term perspective plans, ProRail and Network Rail identified strong and similar interests in the development of ERTMS Level 3 as part of their commitment to increase capacity on main line railway networks. ProRail and Network Rail agreed to take a joint approach on the definition of an effective path to deploy ERTMS Level 3.

The types of Level 3, which are at different levels of maturity in terms of definition and development, have been named as follows:

  • Level 3 Overlay.
  • Level 3 Hybrid
  • Level 3 Virtual block.
  • Level 3 Moving block.

Of these, Hybrid Level 3 is the most mature and is defined in detail in this paper. Hybrid Level 3 has been developed as a type of Level 3 which mitigates the Level 3 challenges described above using xxisting technology solutions. It does this by dealing with the potential issue of insufficient train information by using a limited amount of trackside train detection. In this way this concept avoids the need for new and complex operational procedures and should secure performance when introduced. It means trains which are not able to report confirmed train integrity can still be authorised to run on the line, albeit with longer, but still acceptable, headways. Trains which are disconnected from the RBC are no longer lost. They are still visible by means of the trackside train detection, which facilitates operational movements of disconnected trains, protection against unauthorised disconnected trains, and recovery after RBC failures. In addition, in certain key locations trackside train detection should enable good performance by providing faster release of critical infrastructure (e.g. points) than on the basis of train position reports (e.g. if the position reports are delayed, or there are margins in the reported train length).

NOTE: Hybrid Level 3 has now been renamed Hybrid Train Detection - HTD.

Author(s):Nicola Furness (Network Rail UK); Henri van Houten (ProRail, Netherlands); Maarten Bartholomeus (ProRail, Netherlands); Laura Arenas (Network Rail)
Keywords:ERTMS Level 3; Level 3; block;
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(Click to copy the Topic URL to the clipboard) Page created: 01/04/2017
Last modified: 24/06/2023
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