Danish railway infrastructure operator Banedanmark, a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Transport, has commissioned the first section of CBTC signalling on Copenhagen’s S-Bane commuter rail network. The communication-based train control systems use telecommunication between trains and track equipment to manage traffic and control infrastructure. This more accurately pinpoints the position of trains, thus increasing the efficiency and safety of rail traffic.
OTN Systems was contracted to deliver the telecommunication network built on OTN-X3M technology (Open Transport Network, N50 series). In this first phase, the N50 nodes will serve as a communication channel between Hillerød, Jægersborn and the engineering control center in Copenhagen. Redundancy that ensures high availability and reliability was crucially important. Therefore, it was decided to split the network into numerous sub-rings, with backup via an external party. This increased the complexity of the network because considerable routing is required to transmit signals from the layer 2 Gigabit access rings (connected in parallel to the OTN-X3M-2500 backbone) to the central control room.
Despite the complexity, OTN successfully carries multiple applications over its backbone - CBTC, traffic management system, SCADA, VoIP, interlocking system and radio communication system - and meets Banedanmark’s requirements.
