Author(s)

MEHMET ALI DAGLI

Abstract

Within the rail environment, as well as in any part of life, communication is one of the most important topics. With the advanced features gained via the new communication technologies, train control systems are improving too, especially at the urban transport level with reduced distance between the running trains, more trips can be performed. Continuous communication is the most important role in that improvement. Within this paper a new communication utility is proposed for the urban transport signalling systems. Using the state of art visible light communication (VLC) technology, we show how to design the illuminations of the underground lines as the communication medium between the central processors and the trains. In addition to the signalling systems, thanks to the high capacity bandwidth of VLC, big data transfer used on the other systems like real time monitoring and managing of the trains can be supported. Another proposed design is for providing new features to the recent conventional signalling systems via upgrading the light bulbs with the VLC-enabled LED ones. With all of these aspects shown in the paper it is worth mentioning that existing conventional systems can be upgraded, new communication medium can be implemented or provide more redundancy and availability can be added to the present wireless communication systems.

Keywords

visible light communication, VLC, CBTC, signalling, railway