SINGAPORE: Siemens Mobility launched its Signaling X train control platform in the metro market at the Singapore Rail Test Centre on November 12.
The supplier says safety-critical functions can run on commercial off-the-shelf hardware with Siemens Mobility’s Distributed Smart Safe System software platform. This enables up to 20% higher operational efficiency and energy savings of up to 30%, delivering more capacity and enabling more trains to run safely at closer intervals, it added.
Signaling X is intended to allow multiple signalling, train control and related IT systems to sit in a single cloud-based data centre, potentially allowng the control of an entire metro network from one data centre.
At the test centre, Siemens showcased how Signaling X could replace costly fixed assets. The data platform replaced four cabinets in the demonstration area, covering a conventional interlocking; ATS equipment; a CBTC control unit and the ATP safety equipment.
One of the key advantages behind this approach is that it enables railways and metro operators to start to separate hardware and software applications, potentially reducing the need for expensive regulatory recertification processes in resignalling projects.
Signaling X uses three servers using ‘two in three voting’, of which two can independently provide the necessary data for the same operation, even if the third one receives a different message. In that case, the server unit can be taken out of service to be checked and cleared.
‘Today marks a milestone in the digital transformation of mass transit as we unveil Signaling X in a live urban rail environment here in Singapore. Signaling X brings together various signaling systems onto one platform, expanding capabilities through open interfaces’, said Marc Ludwig, CEO of Rail Infrastructure at Siemens Mobility.
