Discussion Board
GROUP DISCUSSION 9
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Requirement Documents
ContextWith the development of infrastructure and massive development in all states of the world, the incorporation of the reliable transport system for the users for the economic and mobility benefit. Therefore, to increase the safety and the reliability of this means of transport is important to safeguard lives for citizens and improve the economy of a country.
PurposeAmong the very crucial importance of implementation of a tracking system for the railway, travels are among them safeguarding the lives using the rail infrastructure, preserving infrastructure that has been developed already and tracking local trucks and maintaining security within the transport facilities.
ObjectivesThe project should accomplish the following:
Improve on the security of the railway transport facility.
Safeguard the lives of the people being transported using the rail.
Guarding the rail infrastructure by efficiently guarding the rail against accidents.
Ensuring a highly responsive team in case of accidents.
Minimize the number of casualties in the event of accidents.
Reducing cost of tracking and reporting.
Improve communication channels between trains and their respective control room panels.
In the current transport industry especially in the railway transport, a cost for communication between the department of transportation and the real trains are incurred to maintain a constant tracking of the trains and its physical location. Similarly, the government spends a lump sum to fund and wage other private and external cooperation to maintain, improve and provide additional transport facilities to the train departments. Similarly, their interruptions that occur during the transfer of data between the trains control rooms and other trains along the lanes.
Acceptance CriteriaThe proposed project provides a maximum percentage acceptance rate to solve the problems that overwhelm the railway transport industries. In data collection and storage, the project offers the use of next generation technology that is available in developed countries to store and archive data. It also recommended the use of advanced and modern equipment to visualize, send and process data from and to the facilities to ensure safety and security of the premises and the people.
With the provision of advanced technology, processing and analysis of data and information received from the senders are to be done in a large capacity speed and information required to be relayed back to the original senders to be sent back in time with little to no point latency. With the integration of component through the Internet of Things, this will improve and make advanced communication that makes the mechanical parts responsive (Xia, 2012). The use of video and sound analysis will be of great help to the industry.
Data RequirementsAmong the data gathering equipment proposed, the system will be capable of analysis. The following conditions can be used by the system for data collection and flow (Kull, 1997).
Smart Locomotive Telemetric Systems. This is a geographic positioning system that is highly precise, accurate and responsive to any kinds of geographical changes. With the coming up of a Centralized Traffic Control that has a high response on route advisory and therefore making train travel on only fast but coordinated and therefore there is narrow chance for collision since the transport systems are centralized and managed collectively.
Due to the integration of Items using the internet, the integration of car monitoring systems that are modified to suite trains and are fitted with artificial intelligence tools and software to make responses in case of different occurrence of situations.
Health monitoring systems fitted inside the locomotive for emergency responses towards illness of minor injuries to passengers.
Alarm and high alert systems that can relay information and signals externally and internally in trains.
High-definition visual systems such as camera and video recording tools. There should be integrated with individual visual displays that are highly monitored and analyzed at a real time.
Exceptional communication systems, with dedicated frequency channels for radio, relays to control rooms and electronic mapping software fitted with GPS to enable practical guidance to the train.
Highly responsive blocking systems mounted on the trains. This is to increase the breaking systems and period for passengers to minimize on collision accidents. With preference, this is compared to the breaking systems that are fitted in locomotives that use the road.
The use of narrow gauge train radio which is supported by wireless communication channels. According to history, drivers of the trains used railway calls to communicate messages such as accidents which is much slow to communicate and similarly initiate response team. Therefore, through wireless communication, thus it makes it for fast coordination and communication.
Modern railways in several different countries are fielding Positive Train Control (PTC) systems to prevent collisions, derailments, work zone incursions, and passage through switches in the wrong position (Badugu, 2013).
As a result of the anticipated data sources, the capacity of the data to be stored and processed is, therefore, huge. Huge petabytes of data and information require space for storage and archiving for later usage. With the reliability of transport for the purpose of a well-driven economy is important. Therefore a country with a developing economy or developed economy has to invest in the transportation. Among the most reliable means of material, transportation is a railway. The connection between the business need to data processing is that there will be an incurred substantial cost towards achieving data storage and archiving facilities that can accommodate the data to expect. The system for implementation requires a full-time reliability, therefore, latencies, and policy lapses should all be catered including the provision of energy to run and power this facility.
Performance RequirementsIn this system, the need to process and retrieve data in a quick manner is of huge need. The performance of this data capturing equipment will be integrated with hardware components embedded to the locomotives. Automated Train Control facility, which is a system developed for high-speed trains which are meant to carry information about the speed limit of a train. It was developed in Japan and is in the application in the Japanese high-speed trains. From the data acquired with correspondence to this systems, it will be able to apply blocking systems where necessary and in speed regulations. Similarly with the use of the data obtained from this device, the CARAT and ARAT (Computer and Radio Aided Train Control Systems) systems that help in the remote control and equipment embedded to the high-frequency trains (Krenzel, 1992). CARAT systems are used to train traffic and communication between ground and the train. This interface is built to ensure the protection of the train and its content especially in situations like earthquakes. It enables high response by slowing and stopping in case of possible collisions and trimmers that may cause toppling off the rail. A PTC system can automatically vary train speeds, re-route traffic, and safely direct maintenance crews onto and off tracks. In addition to enhancing safety, PTC increases road capacity by maintaining a continuously updated operating plan that optimizes rail use and flow.
With the open channels are wireless frequencies, the need for improved channels and privatize the communication channels. In the wireless frequencies, tapping frequent changing and utilizing of protocols to guard the mode of propagation of frequencies is necessary. Similarly, the use of modern and equipped devices as both software and hardware device firewalls and intrusion detection system to protect the systems from unauthorized access. The Platform Track Intrusion Detection System (PTIDS) is a radar transponder assembly for the surveillance of the tracks in front of a platform; this security solution has been developed exclusively for driverless, remote controlled metro systems (Desai, 2002). Similarly, data cryptography modes can also be utilized to encrypt data transmission. Use of modern algorithms to secure data along the network to avoid mislead by malicious hackers and crackers.
Badugu, S., & Movva, A. (2013). Positive train control. International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Engineering, 3(4), 304-307.
Desai, A., Jiang, Y., Tarkington, W., & Oliveto, J. (2002). U.S. Patent Application No. 10/106,387.
Krenzel, A. (1992). U.S. Patent No. 5,124,915. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Kull, R. C. (1997). U.S. Patent No. 5,681,015. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Xia, F., Yang, L. T., Wang, L., & Vinel, A. (2012). Internet of things. International Journal of Communication Systems, 25(9), 1101.