About the fate of the GSM-R alarm system

Abstract

This article is devoted to the discussion of railway signaling according to the GSM-R standard. Currently, equipment manufacturers are advertising the newest direction of mobile communication 5G, recalling that GSM-R standards will be maintained only until 2030. The purpose of the article is to deal with the state of practical use of GSM-R and discuss the possible policy of Russian Railways. The ways of updating GSM-R in the UK are discussed in detail. The supplier of train radio for the UK is Siemens. Over the years, the product (model V3.6) has been improved to a very high level of reliability. To overcome the problem of interference, the radio stations are equipped with a transceiver, which has significantly improved filters that sharply cut off the adjacent parts of the spectrum (model V4). The European High-Speed Railway Program TEN-T and its expansion at the expense of the Eastern Partnership program were considered, in particular, by the examples of Belarus, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The development of railway radio communication in Russia today is carried out in two directions: the introduction of digital radio communication systems and data transmission of the DMR standard in the 160 MHz frequency band and the GSM-R standard in the 900 MHz band. In our opinion, Russian manufacturers could well master their own production of GSM-R equipment. They are able to develop a technique of high-precision filtering of radio signals in order to eliminate interference with other systems in close frequency ranges.