Zero On-Site Testing Strategies for Wireless TCMS

TCMS is a key element for smart railway operation and maintenance. In order to reduce costs and train weight, EU-funded projects are working on the development of wireless TCMS. The data exchanges between trains and ground will be based on wireless technology such as WiFi or Long Term Evolution. First prototypes are available at the European level. To facilitate the testing of the TCMS interface to ground systems, it is important to develop tools able to represent railway environments without going on tracks (zero on-site testing). In this context, we present two strategies to simulate and emulate a complete wireless network (including the core network), based on the Riverbed Modeler and OpenAirInterface platform, able to take into account various train-to-ground contexts (environment, communication and railway networks load). This work considers LTE technology but can be transposed to other types of technology if representative system models are available. As a proof of concept of the test environment, we present results in terms of delay and delivery rates considering TCMS traffic and various railway scenarios such as train speed and wireless network load.