A level crossing which is a cross point between an automobile road and a railroad is unavoidable for a railway operator. Of course, the safety at a level crossing is top priority and, at the same time, we have to consider the convenience and availability for passers by (pedestrians, vehicles, etc.).Basically, a current level crossing controller is a standalone device. Once it detects a fault, such as lightning stroke damage to a train sensor, it makes/keeps warning according to the fail-safe philosophy and stops passers by entering the train area.However, this long time warning causes not only inconvenience for the passer by but also dangerous situations. For example, it may interrupt emergency vehicles, or it may cause situations where a frustrated passer by would run through the level crossing barriers and enter the train area.Recent ICT (information communication technology) progress has been applied to solve our issues. We have developed a network level crossing system. More than three level crossing controllers are connected through the Ethernet LAN connection to exchange their operational data. At normal state, they are operating as stand-alone machines, once one controller detects a problem, it operates not by means of its own data but by another controller's data. As a result, by a degraded level crossing function, passers by need not undergo unnecessary extensive warning.We have produced the network level crossing system experimentally and examined it in house. Numerical estimation using actual train operation data shows that in cases of malfunction of a train detector, the current level crossing system warns every time, whereas our system warns only 18.7% of the time. It means that the current system completely blocks passers by and our system provides many chances to pass the level crossing. Our system achieves the convenience and
In Japan, there are a lot of high-density railway lines and along the line the long warning time at level crossings has become a social problem. Particularly, about 600 level crossings have a warning time of more than 40 minutes per hour in rush hour. As a result, the traffic of cars and pedestrians is disturbed for a long time. Eliminating level crossings by making overhead crossings has been attempted, but a lot of time and costs are necessary. Therefore, it is an urgent problem to shorten the warning time for such level crossings.Although a constant warning time control for level crossings has been widely adopted at JR East as a countermeasure against the length of time that the level crossing barrier is closed, it requires a lot of hard work on its design and construction as well as testing because its control logic differs in level crossings. In order to cope with this situation, we employed a new train counting sequence, employing two types of counting logic to replace the track circuits. To realize this logic, we only need two starting points and one stopping point. When a train enters one of the two starting points, the train is counted according to the corresponding type. When the train leaves the stopping point, it is subtracted. Thus, we have achieved a train recognition sequence without track circuits. We can apply this simple sequence to all types of automatic level crossings. We are going to incorporate this logic in PLC (programmable logic controller) as a new microelectronic level crossing controller. It is expected to become a product after passing the field test. By using our development, it is expected to reduce the time for design, construction and testing. Furthermore, it is also expected to reduce the number of relays, which leads to a reduction in cost. By the above-mentioned Computers in Railways XIV 87
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