FRANCE: Infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau has commissioned the first digital interlocking to be developed under the Argos programme. This aims to achieve a 30% reduction in deployment times and a 15% reduction in total cost of ownership, along with improvements in performance.
SNCF Réseau launched Argos in June 2018 to develop computer-based interlocking technology offering more advanced, efficient and reliable operations than its life-expired mechanical, electro-mechanical and electrical systems.
The aim is to combine centralised real-time management of vital information with decentralised controllers positioned as close as possible to trackside equipment. This would provide high modularity and standardisation, while reducing cabling and civil works and simplifying obsolescence management.
In September 2020 three consortia were selected to develop, commission and maintain pre-production digital interlockings.
The first Argos installation has been developed by a consortium which now comprises Hitachi Rail (as successor to the former Thales GTS business), Equans and SNIC Signalisation. It has been commissioned at Chasse sur Rhône, south of Lyon.
‘Our collaboration with SNCF Réseau has enabled us to pioneer a new generation of digital interlocking’, said Christophe Jeanney, GTS Country Director of Hitachi Rail in France, on April 24.
