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Long Term Evolution (LTE) is considered to be the natural evolution for the
current Global System for Mobile Communications–Railways (GSM-R) in high
speed railway environments, not only for its technical advantages and
increased performance, but also due to the current evolution of public
communication systems. In railway environments, mission critical services,
operation assistance services, and passenger services must be supported by
reliable mobile communication systems. Reliability and availability are key
concerns for railway operators and as a consequence, railway operators are
usually conservative adopters of information and communication technologies
(ICT). This paper describes the feasibility of LTE as a successor to GSM-R for new
railway mobile communication systems. We identify key features of LTE as a
technology and analyze its ability to support both the migration of current
railway services and the provisioning of potential future ones. We describe the
key challenges to address specific requirements for railway communication
services including the provisioning of voice service in LTE networks, handover
performance, multicast multimedia transmission, and the provisioning of group
communications service and railway emergency calls. © 2013 Alcatel-Lucent.
Bell Labs Technical Journal 18(2), 237–253 (2013) © 2013 Alcatel-Lucent. • DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615
Panel 1. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Terms
2G—Second generation IPsec—Internet Protocol security
3G—Third generation ISI—Inter-symbol interference
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Project KPI—Key performance indicator
ACS—Access class barring LTE—Long Term Evolution
AMBR—Aggregate maximum bit rate MAC—Media access control
AMC—Adaptive modulation and coding MBMS—Multimedia broadcast multicast service
ARP—Allocation and retention priority MEC—Moving extended cell
ASCI—Advanced speech call items MIMO—Multiple input multiple output
ATO—Automatic train operation MME—Mobility management entity
CCTV—Closed circuit television MPLS—Multiprotocol Label Switching
CoMP—Coordinated multi point transmission OFDM—Orthogonal Frequency Division
CP—Cyclic prefix Multiplexing
CQI—Channel quality indicator PCC—Policy and charging control
CS—Circuit switched PGW—Packet gateway
CSFB—Circuit switched fallback PoC—Push-to-talk over cellular
eNodeB—Evolved NodeB ProSe—Proximity Services
EPC—Evolved packet core QCI—QoS class identifier
EPS—Evolved Packet System QoS—Quality of service
ETCS—European Train Control System RAMS—Reliability, Availability, Maintainability,
EVA—Extended vehicular A and Safety
GBR—Guaranteed bit rate RB—Radio bearer
GCSE—Group Communication System Enabler r.m.s.—Root mean square
GERAN—GSM and EDGE radio access network RRC—Radio resource control
GGSN—Gateway GPRS support node RS—Reference symbol
GPRS—General Packet Radio Service SGSN—Serving GPRS support node
GSM—Global System for Mobile Communications SIP—Session Initiation Protocol
GSM-R—GSM-Railways TFT—Traffic flow template
HARQ—Hybrid automatic repeat request TTI—Transport time interval
HHO—Hard handover UE—User equipment
HSPA—High Speed Packet Access UIC—International Union of Railways
HSS—Home subscriber server UMTS—Universal Mobile Telecommunications
ICI—Intercarrier interference System
ICT—Information and communication VGCS—Voice group call service
technologies VoIP—Voice over IP
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem VoLTE—Voice over LTE
IP—Internet Protocol
communication systems, support and maintenance will also improve passenger safety and security
for the current GSM-R system will not only be out- through enhanced operational and safety services
dated but also significantly more expensive. The lat- such as driver video for advance views of platforms
ter can generate opportunities to increase railway and level crossings, as well as remote supervision of
operator’s revenues through new valued-added passengers through onboard closed circuit television
applications and services, but more importantly, to (CCTV).
reduce operations and maintenance costs [8]. New The reduction in the operators’ maintenance and
broadband wireless communication technologies operational costs can be achieved by means of
Non-critical communications
Passenger experience/
Business process support
Quality of service
Figure 1.
Railway services classification.
Figure 2.
Future railway services.
cost requirements, while constraints for critical ser- radio system for railway purposes only, or deploying a
vices are mainly related to requiremeor for reliability, hybrid solution with a public telecommunication com-
availability, and prioritization. Clearly, there is a mis- pany. Figure 2 offers a comprehensive list of the future
match between core services and additional services services necessary in the railway environment.
QoS requirements. Mission critical services demand It is clear that the significant improvement in
assurances for low delay and high reliability, avail- data rates that users experience with LTE has the
ability, and safety. The additional services are con- potential to meet the requirements for non-critical
strained only by available bandwidth. railway services. However, as we stated in the previ-
The mismatch between critical and non-critical ous section, LTE’s potential to address the challenge
applications can play a key role in the deployment strat- of supporting critical railway applications has not yet
egy for train radio infrastructure. Railway operators been analyzed. New requirements and functionalities
have the option of deciding between deploying a private could arise from new services and applications in
LTE GSM-R
LTE IMS-based VoIP (VoLTE) + IMS-based push-to-talk over cellular (PoC)
Voice group call service (VGCS)
(This will be enhanced with the 3GPP Release 12 GCSE_LTE)
VoLTE + PoC: IP multicast of voice and video services
Voice broadcast calls (VBS)
(This will be enhanced with the 3GPP Release 12 GCSE_LTE)
Access class barring mechanisms + policy control rules +
Priority and preemption (eMLPP)
QoS mechanisms
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) addressing Functional addressing (FN)
Location-dependent addressing
Localization services in LTE (Release 10)
(LDA, eLDA)
Railway emergency calls
Emergency and critical safety voice services over IMS in LTE
(REC, e-REC)
Very low latency of LTE to support fast exchange of signaling
Fast call set up
(e.g., IMS-based PoC) + Access class barring
IMS-based SMS service
Data exchange
Use SG interface between MME and MSC server
(SMS, shunting)
MME-based SMS service
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Project MME—Management mobile entity
eLDA—Enhanced LDA MSC—Mobile switching center
eMLPP—Enhanced Multi-Level Precedence and Preemption PoC—Push-to-talk over cellular
e-REC—Enhanced REC QoS—Quality of service
FN—Functional number REC—Railway emergency calls
GCSE—Group Communication System Enablers SG—Signaling gateway
GSM—Global System for Mobile Communications SIP—Session Initiation Protocol
GSM-R—GSM-Railways SMS—Short message service
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem VBS—Video broadcast service
IP—Internet Protocol VGCS—Voice group call service
LDA—Location dependent addressing VoIP—Voice over IP
LTE—Long Term Evolution VoLTE—Voice over LTE
railway environments, and at the very least, future future LTE railway system. IMS multimedia capabilities
train radio systems will have to fulfill current require- will allow voice calls to be easily combined with other
ments around RAMS and QoS [16]. sessions, like video streaming or conferencing. This
enables additional possibilities for new railway service
LTE Features for Supporting Required Railway applications [5].
Functionalities Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) facilitates the
Railway services demand specific functionalities formation, modification and execution of communi-
for train radio systems. Through GSM-R, the GSM cation sessions between individual or multiple par-
standard was enhanced with advanced speech call ticipants. These may include instant messages,
item (ASCI) functionalities to meet railway needs, and phone and video calls, or interactive multimedia
LTE must be similarly enhanced in order to take its conferences. This protocol can be the key to enable
place. Table I shows the LTE features and mechanisms the functional addressing required feature for the
necessary to implement the railway functionalities. LTE system. SIP addresses are used to find the user’s
The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is the tech- network location so that they can be reached any-
nology proposed to support multimedia services in a where [22].
A Ipl R
C E
C Im M
E GLMS O
S T
PoC
S E
IMS If Ik
client
N It N
CORE
E PoC server E
UE
T T
W W
O O
R R
K Is K
In
GLMS—Group list management server
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem
IP—Internet Protocol
PoC—Push-to-talk over cellular
UE—User equipment
Figure 3.
IMS based push-to-talk over cellular architecture.
Packet data
TAS SCC
Packet voice
E-UTRAN IMS AS
IMS signaling
eNB
Figure 4.
Voice service provision over IMS in LTE.
for a future railway communication system. In rail- traffic flow template (TFT) is a set of packet fil-
way environments, LTE must assure the delivery of ters associated with an Evolved Packet System
data and voice packets while meeting a combination (EPS) bearer. The bearers can be default or dedi-
of requirements for delay, jitter, dropped call rate or cated, and they have four configuration param-
data error rate, handover interruption time, maxi- eters: QoS class identifier (QCI), allocation and
mum call setup time and maximum/guaranteed bit retention priority (ARP), guaranteed bit rate
rate. Real time scheduling mechanisms in LTE for (GBR), and aggregate maximum bit rate (AMBR).
resource assignation according to user priorities and The suitable configuration of this set of parame-
service categories are a key element for assuring rail- ters for each one of the railway services must be
way services QoS and RAMS requirements. The key carefully evaluated to meet current GSM-R
LTE features to support the required railway func- requirements.
tionalities are described below. The ARP parameter is stored in the home sub-
• End-to-end QoS mechanisms [9]. The LTE QoS scriber profile (HSS) and it indicates the user pri-
architecture is based on a bearer system. The ority level as well as the preemption capability
EPC
P-GW
S1 S10
S5-6 S8
S11
MME S-GW
eNB
LTE NETWORK
EXTERNAL LTE
E-UTRAN
ANTENNA
SMALL CELL
Figure 5.
LTE moving relay in railways.
Uplink (UL) operating band Downlink (DL) operating band Duplex mode
E-UTRA BS receive/UE transmit BS transmit/UE receive
operating band
FUL_low – FUL_high FDL_low – FDL_high
1 1920 MHz – 1980 MHz 2110 MHz – 2170 MHz FDD
2 1850 MHz – 1910 MHz 1930 MHz – 1990 MHz FDD
3 1710 MHz – 1785 MHz 1805 MHz – 1880 MHz FDD
4 1710 MHz – 1755 MHz 2110 MHz – 2155 MHz FDD
5 824 MHz – 849 MHz 869 MHz – 894 MHz FDD
7 2500 MHz – 2570 MHz 2620 MHz – 2690 MHz FDD
8 880 MHz – 915 MHz 925 MHz – 960 MHz FDD
...
20 832 MHz – 862 MHz 791 MHz – 821 MHz FDD
23 2000 MHz – 2020 MHz 2180 MHz – 2200 MHz FDD
25 1850 MHz – 1915 MHz 1930 MHz – 1995 MHz FDD
...
41 2496 MHz 2690 MHz 2496 MHz 2690 MHz TDD
designated for refarming (bands 1, 3 and 8) and a railroad tracks is specifically designed so that the
new 2600 MHz band (band 7). cells overlap in order to allow problem-free hand-
One of the main concerns for rail customers is offs. The length of the transfer depends on the speed
cross border interoperability. A harmonized spec- of the train and the time required by each radio
trum is a key element to achieving this goal other- technology to make a transfer. Small cells require
wise system equipment would have to support frequent handovers, which translates into increased
multiple frequency bands, which adds time, expense, network signaling, and reduced bandwidth for data
complexity, and inefficiency. transmission.
Selecting a network operating frequency requires
careful consideration. Higher frequencies adversely Backwards Compatibility and Migration Strategy
impact propagation conditions and lead to a more An important consideration in adopting LTE as a
severe Doppler effect. As a consequence, smaller cell communications system in railway environments
sizes are needed to provide required QoS levels. is backwards compatibility with the legacy GSM-R
Hence, more base stations will be needed to service a system.
geographical area, which in turn may result higher The LTE architecture employs interconnection
deployment costs. units to allow different technologies to access the LTE
In addition, we must carefully analyze the impli- core, known as the evolved packet core (EPC). This
cations of the transfers that occur with handovers in feature allows handovers to be performed between
high speed rail services. Cellular coverage along heterogeneous networks—for example, access to a