MoySEST project fosters digital transformation of rail

Teltronic, in cooperation with Kenmei Technologies, Nemergent Solutions and S2 Grupo, has launched the MoySEST (Mission Critical Services and Transport Systems) project. With a planned implementation budget of €7.2 million, MoySEST is one of the initiatives selected for the 2022 edition of UNICO 5G Sectorial, a program to boost 5G sectorial digitisation tractor projects funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and the European Union’s NextGenerationEU.

Through a broadband train-to-ground critical communication solution based on 5G technology, the MoySEST project aims to boost and accelerate the digital transformation of the railway sector in Spain. As noted by Teltronic CTO Alfredo Calderón, “At a time when the train must undergo a major evolution as a more sustainable transport system, the capacity and efficiency of train-to-ground communications needs to scale to the next level, in order to drive the implementation of more advanced applications related to safety, efficiency of operational processes and better use of resources.”

The current demands of transport operators, such as real-time video surveillance services, new operating models, preventive maintenance of railway infrastructures or full autonomous driving, are not achievable with the technologies currently in use, some of which, such as the GSM-R standard, are very close to obsolescence. The MoySEST project has the ambition of eliminating these technological and functional barriers through a solution which, based on 5G radio technology, develops critical train-to-ground communication services based on latest-generation standards specifically designed under the framework of FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System), the standardised and interoperable system promoted by the UIC (International Union of Railways) to digitise rail transport.

Within the project, with a marked experimental development character, lines of work are established that will address the functional suitability of 5G technology for the support of mission-critical services, the guarantee of the demanding quality of service through artificial intelligence algorithms, real-time supervision mechanisms of the system’s cybersecurity framework, the provision of specific and interoperable services through FRMCS, or the analysis and evaluation of deployment models in a combination of private and public 5G network architectures.

The MoySEST project is expected to be developed over 36 months, incorporating a final stage of validation of the results obtained in the form of a field pilot in a controlled environment, with the deployment of a demonstrator system with conclusive capacity. Given the high degree of standardisation and interoperability of the elements on which it will be developed, the project aspires to international dissemination with the creation of a model that can be replicated in railway environments in other countries.

“This project endorses Teltronic’s leadership as a provider of critical communication solutions for rail transport, positions the companies that make up the consortium competitively and allows a route of technological and functional evolution to be established for numerous railway operators in Spain and around the world, providing them with access to a solution that will transform their operating model forever,” Calderón concluded.

This is the second time in recent months that Teltronic has been involved with a rail project, with the company having been made responsible this year for supplying the onboard equipment that will provide broadband communications service to the new trains on line 1 of the Mexico City Metro. Teltronic’s RTP-800 equipment, a state-of-the-art onboard radio that enables uninterrupted and simultaneous narrowband (TETRA) and broadband (4G) radio communications, will be installed in the 29 new trains that will soon enter service, as well as in each of the 10 trains recently acquired by Metro de Mexico City.

Image credit: iStock.com/Ilya Lukichev