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The section of Swedish railway track that is being
simulated in the Braunschweig railway laboratory
Image: OpenStreetMap contributors
With RailSiTe®, the DLR Institute of Transportation Systems
has the only accredited ETCS test laboratory in Germany. The
DLR researchers can use RailSiTe ® to simulate entire rail journeys
using real on-board computers from various national manufac-
turers, enabling them to analyse all communications between
the track and the train, and from the signalman to the train
driver. Safe, fast travel on trains is only possible if the tech-
nology functions flawlessly at all times.
Incompatibilities between the different devices used could
arise, as ETCS is being developed by various manufacturers. A
train from manufacturer A might not run on a track equipped
by manufacturer B. In Sweden, infrastructure operator Trafikverket
has already experienced this exact problem with stretches of line
that are already in operation; the trains regularly malfunction
after travelling for a few hundred kilometres on one of the new
ETCS stretches. The cause of this could not be determined in
live situations, so it was time to call on Braunschweig-based
RailSiTe ®.
For this task, the railway laboratory was enhanced with
the Swedish rail system’s control and safety technology, and an
on-board computer from a Swedish locomotive was integrated
into the simulation. The laboratory environment now interacts
with the train computer on all available interfaces. In this way,
the Swedish computer ‘feels’ its way on a journey across Sweden
and is exposed to critical situations that might occur on a real
stretch of track. There is no need to see the outside when
conducting the tests. The virtual train journey through Sweden
takes place with no scenery and no elk.
The aim of this test is to reproduce malfunction scenarios
and find the cause of the fault. The track data is extracted from
journey recorders on the Swedish trains called ‘Juridical Recording
Units’ (JRUs) using a newly developed method. The JRUs contin-
uously record all relevant input and output as well as motion
Travelling by rail in Europe is not always tranquil – especially when a high-speed train has to stop at a border because
the locomotive or even the driver must be changed. The reason for this is that European countries use different train
control systems. The single European Train Control System, ETCS, should help here. With RailSiTe® (Railway Simulation
and Testing), DLR has an approved testing laboratory for such systems. It is currently doing work for the Swedish rail
network, among others.
To enable railways to operate
smoothly, DLR transport researchers
are simulating stretches of track
By Lennart Asbach
Mystery in the land of the elk
parameters. This formal journey data is transferred to the scenario
using DLR tools. Once the scenarios have been created, train
computers from other manufacturers will also be tested for
interoperability with the track in the laboratory. Functional
discrepancies can then be detected under laboratory conditions.
Let‘s just hope that the elk that are missing from this
simulation don’t turn out to be the main cause of the malfunc-
tions… •
About the author:
Lennart Asbach is an engineer in the railway department at the
Institute of Transportation Systems in Braunschweig. He
researches and develops new methods and tools for simulating
and validating future railway control and safety technology.
Lennart Asbach in the RailSiTe® simulated cab
More information:
www.DLR.de/ts/en/
Railway research | DLR maGazıne 136 · 137 | 45