If you have ever played with bricks, the rules of the game are usually simple: you have a set of elements that, once put together, create an interconnected structure. It could be a simple building or a complex system composed of numerous elements, decorations, and connections. The endless number of combinations makes the play interesting and the ideas hardly exhaustive.
The ETCS railway system installed on the vehicle resembles this play to some extent. Multiple components exist that are connected through interfaces. The interfaces may resemble the size of the bricks and their compatibility with one another. Different sizes simply won’t fit, and neither will railway components based on different interfaces. Yet the railway systems have one caveat: the number of available elements and their connections is much more limited, so coming up with a fresh new idea of how the system could look and connecting its bricks randomly will not work.

What functions do the building blocks of ETCS on-board provide?

Modern on-board signaling systems like ETCS require multiple elements to coexist on the vehicle. Without them, the system itself will have literally no functionality. In general, ETCS descends from the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system and, as the name suggests, ensures protection of the train. Let’s think about the functionality meant by that.
One of the core principles of the on-board safety system is to maintain safe vehicle operation. Safe means that in unintended situations, the system reacts in a predictable way, triggers a safety reaction, and maintains a safe state of the entire vehicle. A typical safety reaction is to bring the vehicle to a standstill by applying the brakes. A command sent to the braking system is executed by the brake equipment, for example, by opening the brake valve, which causes a drop in brake pressure and the application of the emergency brake.

To read more about this article and to have full access to premium content SUBSCRIBE to Basic Subscription Plan or Premium Subscription Plan.