Ensuring Long-Term Data Integrity: ETCS Data Integrity Requirements Can Be Fulfilled Even under Unfavorable Conditions with the Proper LTE Mechanisms

The European Train Control System (ETCS) is the leading signaling system for train command and control. In the future, ETCS may be delivered over long-term evolution (LTE) networks. Thus, LTE performance offered to ETCS must be analyzed and confronted with the railway safety requirements. It is especially important to ensure the integrity of the ETCS data, i.e., to protect ETCS data against loss and corruption. In this article, various retransmission mechanisms are considered for providing end-to-end ETCS data integrity in LTE. These mechanisms are validated in simulations, which model worst-case conditions regarding train locations, traffic load, and base-station density. The simulation results show that ETCS data integrity requirements can be fulfilled even under these unfavorable conditions with the proper LTE mechanisms.