Transforming Surface Transports Radio System - Transport for Londons - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Transforming Surface Transport’s Radio System - Transport for London’s Telecommunications Strategy

Dr Dimitris Kaltakis – Senior Product Manager and Design Authority

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Background

• The radio system is comprised of 10 radio sites and provides mobile radio coverage within the

Greater London Area on frequencies licensed from OFCOM to TfL.

• There are a total of 66 traffic channels distributed to those 10 sites with majority allocated to

dominant sites.

• The current analogue PMR solution was designed to provide voice radio communication for

up to 35,000 calls per day.

• Peak daily calls are now averaging 68,000 with snow/industrial action/major events seeing
• ver 74,000 calls per day. Latent demand for at least 25% more capacity as indicated by

attempts to contact buses.

• During peak times, the number of calls results in call queuing of unacceptable lengths.
• The amount of time Bus controllers now spend queuing during busy hours has more than

tripled from under 2 hours in 2011 and 4 and a half during the first half of 2015 to more than six hours.

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Objectives and Scope

Objectives

• Provision of a radio system that will address

the capacity issues and scale for the forecast growth in London’s Bus Fleet over the next 10years, thus helping Surface Transport provide a quality bus network.

• Provision of a resilient, reliable, modern, and

cost efficient communications method between buses, bus operators and emergency responders through the upgrade of aging radio system.

• Develop a Surface Radio Bridge to enable a

hand portable radio service for the areas of London where a direct Private Mobile Radio (PMR) service is required to deal with incidents and major events. In Scope:

• Radio equipment at existing radio sites
• Central radio system components
• Bus radios

Not in scope

• The bus antennas
• The radio equipment at the existing base sites that can be

reused

• The AVL system and interfaces as well as AVL bus

components

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Technology and Challenges

Why not LTE now?

• Redundancy and fall-back mechanisms/access

under heavy usage

• Data costs
• No suitable commercial offering

What DMR Tier III does:

• Maintain current functionality, high reliability and

low running costs and support existing AVL interface.

• Increased data capabilities.
• Generic and open interfaces for the bus radio.
• Ability to support an all IP connection within the

vehicle.

• Dynamic Network management and optimisation

reports and KPIs.

• A low cost private radio network for critical voice

communication and fallback data communication that other TfL users can bolt onto. Challenges Time

• System already at capacity

Cost Quality

• Not impact system performance during transition

Migration

• Safety critical 24/7 system
• In-Frequency migration
• Free movement of buses between depots and

within a service area

• Route re-lets
• Night routes

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Migration/Implementation strategy

Key is to de-risk the migration as much as possible

• Comprehensive test regime
• Factory acceptance
• Pilot phases
• Critical Mass
• Full rollout

Dual mode base stations and dual mode bus radios:

• Provides fall back mechanisms
• Allows us to transition the fleet with the least risk
• Allows us to progress with the speed of rollout that we require

MPT Classic Node MPT IP Node DMR Node Inter Node Gateway

Dual mode base stations

Analogue Base Stations

MPT Classic Node MPT IP Node

Analogue Base Stations

Buses installed with dual mode radios

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Our Objectives and Plans

Over-The-Air Voice Services Over-The-Air Voice Services

Provide supportable and fit-for-purpose over-the-air voice services, employing the minimum number of different technologies and platforms, and adopting long-term industry standards where possible / cost effective to do so

Cellular Voice & Data Services Cellular Voice & Data Services

Deliver a strategic cellular voice and data agreement which is able to satisfy both our user and machine-to-machine requirements in a cost effective manner

The Data Network and Telecommunications vision The Data Network and Telecommunications vision

“The timely delivery, on a service provision basis, of well managed, cost-efficient and fit-for-purpose data network and telecommunications services, which satisfy TfL’s current and foreseeable future needs”

The Objectives The Objectives

The vision will be realised through four key objectives: 1. A reduction in the total cost of ownership of data network and telecommunications services 2. The provision of fit-for-purpose services which deliver what projects and programmes specify they need, where and when they need it 3. The establishment of best-in-class service management capabilities to oversee the ongoing delivery of the services 4. The implementation of robust and effective governance and control process to ensure optimal benefits realisation

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The End-State Vision

• A single logical TfL network comprising multiple integrated wired

and wireless networks that:

• is a hybrid network based on the most effective blend of
• utsourced and owned networks;
• is available for use by all TfL Modes, where it is needed and

when it is needed;

• provides the required levels of physical and logical security,

capacity, availability and resilience to support TfL’s needs;

• is based on standard technologies and design patterns;
• is scalable and able to cost-effectively cater for known and likely

future requirements;

• is capable of supporting public requirements; and
• is supported by best-in-class service management capabilities

and product governance.

Voice and data radiating infrastructure (public & private) Signal and train control systems

The TfL Network

Signal Access

ASSET PA CCTV

Office Networks

Connectivity to street assets

Public Access WiFi

TOC Locations

Bought-In Network Services Owned Network Services

Station Networks

ASSET PA CCTV

Train Networks