From 22 – 24 January 2014, the Rail System Department organised the 5th edition of the UIC ERTMS Training Programme. On this occasion, Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General, welcomed the 50 participants from railway organisations, manufacturers, national security agencies and academics from all over the world. He also said that the priorities for UIC and its operator and infrastructure members vis-à-vis ERTMS are availability, durability, safety, and asset management. ERTMS definitely represents an opportunity for the railways in terms of interoperability and new business possibilities (new international services).
The Training Programme is aimed at giving a complete overview of the ERTMS system at an international level in all its features: how it works, its components (ETCS European Train Control System, GSM-R Global System for Mobile Communications-Railways, Interlockings), the corridor approach and how it contributes to a sustainable transport system (capacity, safety, economics, OpenETCS).
On this occasion, Libor Lochman, CEO of CER, presented the legal and political background in Europe. George Barbu (UIC expert) gave an introduction to European Traffic Management System and the three-day training. Stefano Marcoccio explained the certification process and harmonisation of procedures within the Rotterdam-Genoa corridor.
In the afternoon the UIC experts Piero Petruccioli, Dan Mandoc and Marc Antoni presented the ERTMS architecture: ETCS and GSMR components on track and on board and the interface to interlocking systems.
On the second day workshops were organised on practical country cases: ERTMS development in France by Pierre-Jean Ginoux from SNCF and the Italian ERTMS system by Fabio Senesi from RFI.
A moment appreciated by all participants was the training on the ERSA simulator – software offering the ability to simulate a train travelling in real conditions and with various ERTMS scenarios, including handover from the national legacy system to ERTMS.
Dan Mandoc organised the GSM-R presentation followed by a workshop based on practical cases: GSM-R French country case by Jean Cellmer, from RFF and the GSM-R Italian country case by Fabio Senesi from RFI.
On the third day, the training offered a full session to demonstrate the contribution of ERTMS to a more sustainable transport system. This session was about ERTMS benchmark, worldwide implementation and migration strategies (Airy Magnien and Piero Petruccioli, both UIC). The Level 1 Limited Supervision was presented by Michelle Roth from SBB. The session was closed by Susan Reinartz from ERA who delivered a presentation on the impact of ERTMS on train driver work and human factors.
The future developments of ERTMS included topics such as odometry and the SATLOC project (George Barbu, UIC) implementation of Computer Based Train Control systems (CBTC) and the new approach for ETCS On-Board Units (OBU) based on open source software principles presented by Klaus-Rüdiger Hase from DB. The ERTMS Users Group represented by Aidan McGrady focused on the Automatic Train Operation (ATO) project.
Finally, the last day ended with a presentation of the ERTMS Regional project by Susanna Strom, Trafikverket and Tony Crabtree, UK. The origins of this project are in Sweden, but a special version of ERTMS for lines with low traffic density is meanwhile being considered by other countries as well.
During the conclusion of the programme and the evaluation of the training the participants thanked the UIC representatives for the professional organisation. They also expressed their need for such training programmes with even more interactive workshops and practical cases.
