Research and Development of Railway Mobile Communication System in the Future

At present, the global railway dedicated mobile communication system (GSM-R) belongs to 2G narrowband communication system. The manufacturer has announced that GSM-R equipment will reach its service life around 2030, and its technical support will be terminated around 2035. The International Union of Railways (UIC) began to study the alternative network of GSM-R in 2015, established the Working Group of Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) in 2018, and plans to launch the future railway mobile communication system based on 5G for the first time in Europe in 2025.

FRMCS Working Group consists of seven working groups, namely Functional Working Group (FWG), Architecture and Technology Working Group (ATWG), Frequency Band Working Group (UGFA), Telecommunication Vehicle Architecture (TOBA), Third Generation Partnership Program Task Force (3GPP TF), Future Railway Mobile Communication System Steering Committee and X2Rail Coordination Group. At present, the progress made by FRMCS Working Group is as follows.

(1) Formulate industry standards and railway standards related to 5G communication

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) team is an influential international standard-setting body in the mobile communication industry, aiming at standardizing the basic "communication components" on a global scale. The FRMCS Functional Working Group (FWG) and the Architecture and Technology Working Group (ATWG), in cooperation with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), classify and arrange the use cases adopting the communication standardization mechanism, and incorporate them into the User Requirements Specification for Future Railway Mobile Communication Systems, and submit them to the Third Generation Partnership Program Task Force (3GPP TF), and then incorporate them into the 5G standards related to 3GPP. The communication standard formulated by UIC has been recognized globally. In the latest 5G R17 standard of 3GPP, the relevant specifications of railway mobile communication service have been adopted, and the relevant requirements are mainly given for four communication scenarios, such as vehicle-to-ground batch transmission of surveillance video, ground-to-vehicle multimedia batch transmission, mass data transmission between carriages, and coexistence of vehicle automatic control application with other applications. The system performance parameters are put forward for railway trunk line and urban rail transit respectively.

In addition, the FRMCS Working Group has begun to formulate a complete set of 5G future railway mobile communication system specifications, such as the future railway mobile communication system functional requirements specification (FRMCS FRS) applicable to infrastructure and vehicle-mounted equipment, and special specifications for airborne communication equipment.

(2) Establish a benchmark for a new telecom vehicle architecture scheme

In mid-2019, the Telecommunications Vehicle Architecture and Technology Working Group (ATWG) of FRMCS Working Group determined some vehicle telecommunications architecture solutions, which are now called "Telecommunications Vehicle Architecture Option 3". At the beginning of 2020, the railway industry officially selected Option 3 of Telecom Vehicle Architecture as the benchmark of the vehicle architecture of the future European Railway Transport Management System.

(3) Determine the special frequency band for the future railway mobile communication system in Europe

In 2017, Europe raised the issue of railway dedicated frequency band. In 2018, UGFA, a FRMCS frequency band working group, actively explored the industry demand with the support of many railway companies and telecom suppliers. Finally, the Electronic Communication Commission decided to unify the railway dedicated frequency in Europe in 900MHz (5.6 MHz) and 1900MHz (10MHz) bands, and formulated favorable conditions for frequency use and radio coexistence for operators.

(4) Carry out major projects such as 5GRail

UIC officially started the research of 5GRail project in November 2020, which lasted for 30 months, with a total investment cost of 14 million euros, including 8 work packages, which were led by UIC, Deutsche Bahn (DB), NOKIA (NOKIA), KONTRON and other companies, with 18 participating enterprises and related departments. The main objective of this project is to develop FRMCS prototype system based on FRMCS Version 1 functional and system requirements specification issued by UIC and 5G technical standard issued by 3GPP, and test it in laboratory and actual orbit conditions. The 5GRail project plans to test a large number of railway application scenarios, especially the European Train Control System (ETCS), Automatic Train Operation System (ATO), Train Network Control System (TCMS), video and automatic interactive application, etc. Relevant tests will be conducted in the laboratory environment first, and then extended to the field environment, and scenarios such as cross-border operation will be considered.