As global population continues to increase, the need for greater mobility and to decongest roads becomes all the more critical. It’s no surprise then that transportation networks (rail, air and/or sea) are now becoming more technology-defined to keep pace with passenger growth and to provide better customer experience. This creates immense challenges to transport networks. However, reliability and safety of service remain paramount, as is accessibility and security of networks.
As global population continues to increase, the need for greater mobility and to decongest roads becomes all the more critical. It’s no surprise then that transportation networks (rail, air and/or sea) are now becoming more technology-defined to keep pace with passenger growth and to provide better customer experience. This creates immense challenges to the IT infrastructure of transport networks. However, reliability and safety of service remain paramount, as is accessibility and security of networks.
The transportation sector is one of the world’s most critical industries, according to a recent report from Vertiv. For example, many stages of rail transport today heavily depend on technology, from ticketing systems to sensors to communication networks. Even small delays at one point of a network can have adverse effects across the entire network.
As many cities seek to expand their rail network to decongest roads, availability becomes all the more critical. When downtime hits a rail network, it tends to be more localized and immediate, with greater angst and societal disorder among commuters dependent on rail for basic transportation. It is then critical to secure not only your physical network system, but also your IT system to make sure all areas of the network are functioning efficiently.
As rail operators, here are some of the critical areas that you need to take note of within your network:
First Class Ticket – Always On IT Infrastructure
Signaling systems on transport networks need to remain functioning 24/7. For this, they need robust IT architecture and redundancy. This solution needs to be able to both diagnose issues quickly and then restore the signaling system fast.
Shunting Yard – The need for a resilient, yet flexible IT system
Rail networks, having being developed and upgraded over a long time tend to have multiple different technologies of new and old varieties in potentially hostile (hot) and remote environments. This requires an IT system that can talk to all these. Couple that with technical engineering staff who may be based long distances from signaling sites, means the need for remote monitoring and access is essential for fast restoration of signaling systems.
Coupling Chemistry – A unified IT Infrastructure
Modern rail networks deploy high performance KVM transmitters to the signaling equipment, and corresponding receivers on the operator’s desk so the operator can connect their computer directly into the signaling computer technology and manage the network’s IT infrastructure, from a centralized operations center or any other remote location.
Control Rooms – Remote Monitoring for the IT systems
To keep a transportation system moving, your operations personnel need to rapidly access, view, and aggregate data maintained in multiple operational IT systems. This data also needs to be delivered in many formats, such as video feeds, teleconferencing sessions, maps, and more. And your control rooms have to operate efficiently, ensure systems are running smoothly and keep costs under control.
High-performance KVM systems - offers a quick and simple way to provide access to an unlimited number of operational systems. At the same time, a fully-integrated, converged data center can also be ideal for control rooms as they support IT deployments/upgrades while providing the maximum efficiency and availability at the smallest footprint.
