Powerline Communication for Freight Trains, Wassner Jürgen
Sitting in comfortable passenger trains with high-speed internet access we almost think nothing of going from Zurich to Paris in four hours. In comparison, rail freight wagons appear to be completely fallen out of time. Why is that? And why does it matter?
In this talk we will first discuss these questions and see why automatic wagon coupling together with on-board data communication is crucial for efficient freight train operation. We then take a closer look at different layers of the Powerline Train Backbone (PTB) stack, a technology developed at CC ISN to provide reliable communication across freight trains. PTB is one of three communication technologies currently being tested by the Shift2Rail initiative as a key element of the future European rail cargo system.