Saturday, December 02, 2017

Signals required under TKL train control system

The TKL train control system requires 3 types of signals to be installed along the track. The passing train should be able to read the signals and act on them.

Type A) This tells the train that there is a station ahead and the train should reduce speed.

Type B) This tells the train exactly where to stop so that the train doors and platform doors are correctly aligned.

Type C) This tells the train the km point that it has just passed. The train will send the time and km point to the control center. These signals are installed every 0.5 km along the track. The train passes this signal every 20 seconds.

There will be redundancy of the signals. At each point, there will be signals being sent by four separate transmitters. Surely one of them will be received?

If any of the transmitter failed, it will not send any signal. The smart maintenance system will know which transmitter failed and can have it replaced.

All the signals send out a UUID to ensure that it is a valid signal. The transmitters are placed along the track and can only be read by the passing train.

The type C signals are used to compute the punctuality of the train and to adjust the speed, i.e. increase speed if the train is behind schedule and reduce speed if it is ahead of schedule.

The control center will also know the distance and speed of the preceding train. If the distance is less than 0.5 km, the following train will be set at the same speed.

There is also a collision avoidance system installed on the train. This is a last resort measure. No, not really the last resort. The last resort is a driver who can apply the brake manually.

The beauty of this approach is that it does not have to reply on GPS or radar.

Tan Kin Lian












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