While doing some research for an article about driverless trains, I came across this document by Mircea Georgescu (who most recently worked at Thales [I think?] and whose email I can’t track down! Mircea, if you’re reading this, trimite-mi si mie te rog frumos un email la [email protected]!), that’s a sort of primer on CBTC and its application in driverless train operation. The paper is very short as far as these things go, and surprisingly readable, even if Mircea’s English ain’t the best. You can download the PDF here, and here’s the abstract:
Reliable driverless operation requires specific features implemented at system and subsystem levels of the train control system. Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) is now proven as the best choice for driverless systems due to inherent high levels of safety and reliability with a low life cycle cost. This paper proposes a systematic approach that may be used to determine the most efficient way to fulfil the requirements specific to each customer faced with driverless operation (green field or re-signaling). It also defines “must have” requirements (functionality) to obtain the desired performance and cost. The paper also addresses issues related to the operability, maintainability, and availability of different types of driverless CBTC systems implementations, and the advantages and disadvantages of each solution.
By the way, the article references another written by Mircea Georgescu and Firth Whitwam called “Moving to Full Automatic Operations,” whose citation is “IEEE Hong Kong 2005.” Anyone know where I could get my hands on this? [email protected], as always!
I’m puzzled. What do you see in this paper? There’s a nice summary of some driverless CBTC implementations, but beyond that, I was disappointed not to find any trace of “a systematic approach that may be used to determine the most efficient way to fulfil the requirements specific to each customer faced with driverless operation.”
If I was tasked with reviewing this paper for publication, I would reject it on the grounds that it did not satisfy its own abstract, did not have any novel content, nor did it fulfill a different goal, such as presenting existing knowledge in a new way, or putting together a comprehensive survey of the field. Glancing briefly at the “Computers in Railways” proceedings, it seems that this is not the only paper with questionable standards.
I’d be lying if I said that thought didn’t cross my mind before posting it… :-/