The digital railway and FRMCS. A replacement for GSM-R

The concept of digital rail arose with the first operational implementation of GSM-R in 1999. The International Union of Railways (UIC) describes GSM-R as “the carrier of the first digital rail radio communication system”. GSM-R is a second generation (2G) digital radio system based on the commercial GSM mobile phone system adapted for use on railways. Companies like Motorola modified their successful 2G land mobile infrastructure products to support GSM-R. GSM-R has been very successful in Europe and has been used in more than 20 countries on 100,000 km of track. The number of modern rail communication systems is expected to increase in the coming years due to ongoing installations around the world, including locations such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, India, China and Australia.

GSM-R technology is now over 20 years old and vendors are actively planning end-of-life support for equipment. Which means that software updates and hardware replacements will cease at the end of their useful life. The latest 5G technologies are designed to support flexible mobile broadband systems, supporting both low and very high bit rate connections.

Enter, FRMCS – Future Railway Mobile Communications System. It started in 2012 with the publication of a UIC called User Requirements Specification (URS) to capture user requirements for communications on rail worldwide. FRMCS is much more than just a location for GSM-R, it represents an opportunity to revolutionize communications in a modern rail system.

At the time of writing, the most recent URS is FU 7100-v5.0.0, released in May 2020. These user requirements are translated into the Functional Requirements Specification (FRS) and, in turn, into the Specification system requirements (SRS). The SRS is necessary to comply with the European Directives regarding interoperability between European railways. Second, use cases can be submitted to ETSI and 3GPP for ‘gap analysis’.

Although the UIC states that FRMCS must be technology independent, it does not make sense to develop new technology when 3GPP has a set of standards focused on Mission Critical Communications (MCX).

The FRMCS project is underway with an FRMCS demonstrator planned for 2023 and the first national trials starting in 2024. The benefits of FRMCS are very important for a rail operator, however the timelines are very short and there are a number of challenges facing successful FRMCS implementations.

FRMCS is another area of ​​Critical National Infrastructure in which Wray Castle are international experts. We have helped telecommunications professionals stay on the cutting edge of ever-changing technology since 1958.

For more information on FRMCS, visit the Wray Castle website.