Third-Generation Partnership Project Standards: For Delivery of Critical Communications for Railways

The Global System for Mobile Communications-Railways (GSM-R) is a radio telecommunication network and the bearer technology for the European Train Control System (ETCS). Both GSM-R and ETCS constitute the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). GSM was adopted by the International Union of Railways (UIC) because it was the only system in commercial operation with a great potential to fulfill the requirements for the transport of railway services, although some features had to be added to the standard. However, as time has passed, GSM-R has proven to have capacity limitations, higher costs, and long development cycle times due to the special features built into standard GSM that have reduced the market for GSM-R equipment. These facts, together with the end of industry support by 2025, are motivating the switch to long-term evolution (LTE)/system architecture evolution technology as the new bearer network for railways. LTE provides higher data capacity than GSM and presents a flat architecture, which reduces deployment and maintenance costs as long as standard elements are used. This article provides an overview of third-generation partnership project (3GPP) systems, services, and their standardization status, which should be implemented to support the transport of railway services over a standard LTE network. Additionally, the quality of service (QoS) requirements for the transport of ETCS data control are compared with the QoS provided by LTE.