BANDWIDTH ESTIMATION FOR RADIO BASED
TRAIN CONTROL AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
Byungsik Yoon1, Min-woo Jung1, Sook-jin Lee1, Keun-hong Min2, and Young-Kyu Kim2
1
Wireless Convergence Research Team, ETRI, Daejeon, Republic of KOREA
2
Train Control & Communication Research Department, KRRI, Uiwang, Republic of KOREA
Abstract - The candidates of frequency bands and mobile
communication systems for radio based train control and
railway communication are introduced in this paper. The
strength and weakness of frequency bands and mobile
communication systems are also addressed for developing
optimum frequency utilization and cost efficient railway
infrastructure. A new calculation method of frequency
spectrum bandwidth is proposed for radio based train control
and railway communication system. Proposed method would
be used to request new frequency band for dedicated railway
communication system in Korea.
Keywords: Railway communication, Train control, CBTC,
GSM-R.
1 Introduction
During the last two decades, overall railroad
infrastructures have been rapidly developed with increased
demand for railway services. Especially, railway signaling
and communication are key factors to maintain reliable, safe
and secure operation. In the past, the wired communication
systems were used for train signaling and communications in
railway industry. Nowadays, wireless communication
systems have emerged with a variety of advantages. The
radio based train control and communication system is
consider as cost efficient digital replacement for existing
wired and analogue old railway system. North America and
European countries have developed the radio based train
control system to improve interoperability, safety, and cost
efficiency. Unlike, a U.S. communications-based train
control (CBTC) uses unlicensed frequency band, European
GSM-R (GSM-Railway) uses the licensed frequency band
with 8 MHz bandwidth (876 ~ 880 MHz for uplink and 921 ~
925 MHz for downlink) [1][2]. Although, there are a lot of
difficulty to be given dedicated licensed frequency band from
the government, licensed frequency has many advantages
over train control system. Licensed frequencies has no
interference with other frequency band and it allows higher
transmit power to increase radio coverage. Therefore, the
reliability for secure communication can be increased,
whereas infrastructure efforts along the railway track will be
reduced. Especially, mobile communication based train
control system has cost-effective deployment based on open
and standard based technology. Modern mobile
communication systems provide very high data rate and very
high mobility with secure IP equipment interoperability.
These key features are required for modernized railway
communication architecture.
In this paper, we introduce the analysis result of
frequency bands and mobile communication systems for
Korean Radio based Train Control System (KRTCS) [3]. The
candidates of licensed frequency for KRTCS are addressed in
section 2. In section 3, we describe various candidates of
mobile communication system for railway infrastructure. The
estimation results of spectrum bandwidth for each system are
shown in section 4, and conclusions are drawn in section 5.
2 Frequency candidates for KRTCS
Since current Korean railway communication
infrastructure is based on analog based radio system, railway
communication services are restricted by poor quality of
services, limited applications, large number of staff using the
same channel and limited local connectivity. Because current
radio system for railway infrastructure doesn’t meet the
requirement of future railway communication, Korean
government prepares new railway communication system.
KRTCS is next generation train control and communication
system which will replace current railway infrastructure in
2015. KRTCS use the dedicated radio spectrum for train
control and railway communication. However, there are lots
of challenges to develop and commercialize KRTCS. The
biggest obstacle of implementing KRTCS is the acquisition of
radio frequency. Unfortunately, only limited license
frequency bands remain for public use.
700MHz spectrum bands (698 ~ 806 MHz) which are
supposed to be freed up with analog to digital TV transition
can be used for KRTCS [4]. Frequencies below 1 GHz are
more attractive for radio based train control than those above
1 GHz. Lower path loss for greater radio coverage and lower
Doppler shift for high speed train operation are the key
features in 700MHz frequency. However, most country
already has a plan to use this frequency band for next
generation mobile communications, public safety, and ITS.
New frequency allocation for railway infrastructures seems to
be very competitive.
 Fig. 1. Frequency candidates for KRTCS
White spaces refer to frequencies (54 ~ 698 MHz)
allocated to a broadcasting service but not used locally [5]. A
train control system which has very sophisticate location
information can use these frequency bands. Even if white
spaces have superior frequency properties and less
competitive than 700 MHz, there are unlicensed spectrum
allocation tendency for public usage. Because licensed
spectrum provides very high reliability with minimum
interferences, locally licensed white space frequency should
be given for train control and communication system. Some
technical difficulty also should be solved for implementing
seamless frequency alternation by location information.
Exiting railroad infrastructures have their own radio
frequencies for railway operation. 150 MHz, 440 MHz
analog VHF and UHF bands are used for train driver and
control center communication in Korea. Re-farming of the
existing frequency has no need to allocate new frequency
band and it can use superior frequency properties as well.
However, new technologies for utilizing limited spectrum
bandwidth should be needed and they increase the complexity
of system and implementation cost. Frequency re-farming is
heavily bounded by a very small amount of frequency bands
which are currently used in Korea railway communication.
In conclusion, although there are very competitive
to get frequency license, some frequency area of 700MHz
spectrum bands is the most suitable candidate for KRTCS.
This frequency area not only has good frequency spectral
properties but also could be allocated up to 10MHz
bandwidth for KRTCS. After careful estimation and analysis
of required bandwidth for KRTCS, Korean railway
companies and organizations have schedule to apply 700MHz
frequency distribution process in 2011
3 Mobile communication candidates
for KRTCS
The KRTCS technologies shall be based on
international standardization frame work to enhance the
economic feasibility. It should support for high data rate and
high speed train operation. High data rate with low latency
are needed to support high capacity network utilization and
real time operation in full mobility. Many different mobile
services are currently provided by various mobile
telecommunication service companies in Korea. 2G mobile
systems are ruled out due to the fact that it is not suitable for
future railway communication requirement. Wideband Code
Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), Wireless Broadband
(WiBro, WiMax) and 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is
3G or beyond 3G mobile system. These systems currently
provide high quality mobile services and these are strong
candidate for KRTCS.
WCDMA is 3G mobile communication network which
densely deploys across the nation. Existing WCDMA
network can be used as fallback system when dedicated
WCDMA based train control fail to operation. Meanwhile,
high cost equipments (Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN),
Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN)) for packet
transmission increase the implementation cost. Moreover,
WCDMA is relatively old school telecommunication
technology compare to WiBro and 3GPP LTE.
WiBro (WiMAX) is wireless broadband internet
technology developed by Korea [6]. Although it offers a high
data throughput and wide area of coverage with relatively
low cost network equipments, the major telecom companies
tend to adopt their next generation mobile system as 3GPP
LTE technology.
In 2008, awareness was created on a new technology,
with a promising name 3GPP LTE. This would impact GSM-
R life cycle. 3GPP LTE is latest mobile network technology
which evolved from WCDMA system. It provides high speed
data rate (100 Mbps for downlink) and high mobility (up to
500 Km/h) over the all IP-based network. Recently,
International Union of Railways (UIC) prepares to develop
the LTE-Railway for next generation of GSM-R [7]. The
popularity and globalization is very important for the
interoperation and longtime maintenance of railroad
infrastructure. However, the preparation of commercialized
LTE chip sets and test equipments for developing the radio
based railway communication system needs more time.
Most prominent candidate mobile system is 3GPP LTE
system. Although 3GPP LTE is not fully commercialized at
this moment, it satisfies future railway communication
requirement and will evolve to global railway standardization.
The public hearing and discussion will be scheduled for
railway organizations to decide mobile system for KRTCS in
2011.
4 Spectrum bandwidth calculation
Spectrum bandwidth estimation method varies from one
area to another. Determining how many frequency bands are
needed is vital to frequency band request to government. In
this paper, we estimate the frequency spectrum bandwidth
based on ITU-R M.1390 for train communication system.
[bps/Hz/Cell] for WCDMA, WiBro, and LTE system
respectively. Based on these parameters, we can deliver
required spectrum bandwidth for establishing the KRTCS.
For the highest reliability of train operation, fully duplicated
network structure with overlaid radio cells is usually used in
railway network planning. The duplicated network structure
is shown in fig 2. As a result, total bandwidth should be
double compare to single cell based system.
MSC/VLR MSC/VLR
HLR HLR
TRAU A TRAU B

ITU-R M.1390 is the general methodology to estimate

spectrum bandwidth for various mobile communication BSC A BSC B

services using 12 parameters [8]. These 12 parameters are

analyzed to apply radio based train control system. The
estimation of total data rate which are used during the train BTS BTS BTS BTS BTS BTS BTS BTS

operation is important to calculate bandwidth estimation. To

estimate maximum transmission data rate, we assumed that
Cell A1 Cell A2 Cell A3 Cell A4
Seoul station is the highest data traffic transmission place and Cell B1 Cell B2 Cell B3 Cell B4

diameter of cell coverage is 6 Km. As a result, the data rate

for automatic train control (ATC) is induced about 530 kbps.
To calculate the voice communication data rate, we should
consider the point to point call, group call, broadcast call and Fig. 2. Overlayed radio cells for railway communication
emergence call from the railway many difference
communication scenarios. The total voice data rate is
calculated as 224 kbps with 30 second average conversation WCDMA is Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) system
time. 1.1 Mbps data rate is required for advanced railway data and offers 5 MHz bandwidth for up and down link
service like on-line ticketing, arrival and transit information. respectively. For constructing overlaid radio cell, 40 MHz
The surveillance video service is needed to improve the bandwidth is needed for implementing KRTCS. WiBro uses
security of railway facilities and passenger monitoring. Video Time Division Duplexing (TDD) system and has 5 MHz, 8.75
data rate is calculated as 2 Mbps respectively. Overall data MHz, 10 MHz bandwidth profile in Korea. TDD can share
rate is shown in table 1. the same bandwidth for up and down link connection. So,
17.5 MHz bandwidth can be used for overlaid radio cell.
3GPP LTE uses FDD and has 1.3 MHz, 3 MHz, 5 MHz, 10
Table 1. Estimation of data rate for KRTCS MHz bandwidth profile in Korea. To implement overlaid
radio cell, 12 MHz bandwidth are required for KRTCS.
Function Data rate
Consequently, the required spectrum bandwidth of WCDMA,
Up link Down link WiBro, and LTE are shown in Table 2.
ATC 530 kbps 530 kbps
Voice call 224 kbps 224 kbps Table 2. Required spectrum bandwidth for KRTCS
Data service 1,100 kbps Mobile Up link Down link Total
Video service 2,304 kbps 2, 048 kbps System (Overlayed Cell)

Total 3,058 kbps 3,902 kbps WCDMA 5.86 MHz 7.47 MHz 40 MHz
(10 MHz x 4)

WiBro 2.30 MHz 2.93 MHz 17.5 MHz

(8.75 MHz x 2)
One of the critical parameter for estimating bandwidth is
net system capability of mobile communication system. It is a 3GPP 1.70 MHz 2.24 MHz 12 MHz
LTE (3 MHz x 4)
measure of how much data are transmitted to given frequency
bandwidth in a specific condition of mobile communication
radio cell. The net system capabilities for train control
environment are induced as 0.51, 1.30, and 1.70
5 Conclusions
In this paper, we describe candidates of frequency band
and mobile communication system for Korean radio based
train control system. Each frequency bands and mobile
systems are analyzed to construct efficient train control
system. Required frequency bandwidth is calculated using
ITU-R recommendation under the railway environment.
[7] G. Tingting, and S. Bin, “A high-speed railway mobile
communication system based on LTE,” ICEIE, vol. 1, pp.
414-417, Aug. 2010.
[8] Recommendation ITU-R M.1390. “Methodology for the
calculation of IMT-2000 terrestrial spectrum requirements.”

The analysis results of each mobile communication

system will be used to select the dedicated mobile
communication system for the KRTCS. The strong candidate
of frequency band and mobile system for KRTCS is 700MHz
spectrum band and 3GPP LTE mobile system respectively.
As a result of bandwidth estimation, 3GPP LTE mobile
system requires 12 MHz bandwidth for dedicated radio based
train control and railway communication. The calculation
result of required bandwidth for KRTCS will be used to apply
frequency bandwidth request process of 700MHz frequency
distribution in 2011.

Acknowledgement
This research was supported by a grant (10PURT-
B056851-01) from “Future Urban Railway Development
Program” funded by Minster of Land, Transport and
Maritime Affairs of Korea government.

6 References

[1] R. D. Pascoe and T. N. Eichorn, “What is

communication-based train control,” IEEE Veh. Tech.
Magazine, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 16-21, 2009.

[2] C. Briso-Rodriguez, C. Cortes, F. J. Arques, and I.

Alonso, “Requirements of GSM technology for the control of
high speed trains,” in Proc. Pers., Indoor, Mobile Radio
Comm. Conf., pp. 792-793, Feb. 2002.

[3] http://www.mltm.go.kr/USR/NEWS/m_71/dtljsp?lcmsp
a ge =1&id=155702357, Oct. 2010.

[4] C. Bazelon, “Licensed or Unlicensed: the economic

considerations in incremental spectrum allocations,” IEEE
Communications Magazine, vol. 47, issue 3, pp. 110-116,
Mar. 2009.

[5] S. Shellhammer, A. Sadek, and W Zhang, “Technical

challenges for cognitive radio in TV white space spectrum,”
Information Theory and Applications Workshop, pp. 323-334,
Feb. 2009.

[6] M. Auado, O. Onandi, P. Agustin, M. Higuero, and E.

Jacob Taquet, “Wimax on rails,” Vehicular Technology
Magazine, IEEE, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 47-56, Sep. 2008.