Research on Parallel Control Mechanism and Its Implementation in ATP

• Published in: IEEE transactions on intelligent transportation systems Vol. 17; no. 6; pp. 1652 - 1662
• Main Authors: Wang, Junfeng, Li, Yuanjing, Zhang, Yong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.06.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Accidents; ATP; Channels; Computers; Control systems; CTCS-3; Grounds; High-speed railway; Intelligent transportation systems; Mass transit; Monitoring; Monitoring systems; Onboard equipment; parallel control mechanism; Rail transportation; Reliability; Safety; Subways; Synchronization; Velocity control; parallel control mechanism; High-speed railway; CTCS-3; ATP; safety; reliability
• ISSN: 1524-9050; 1558-0016
• DOI: 10.1109/TITS.2016.2516518

A train control system consists of subsystems such as automatic train protection (ATP), computer-based interlocking, and centralized train control, all of which are self-disciplined control systems. The output of a self-disciplined control system is not supervised by other systems or equipment. An accident will occur if "fail-safe" cannot be realized upon the failure of the equipment. The "7-23" train accident that happened in 2011 in China is a good example of this. This paper proposes a method of parallel control by establishing another channel to aid the control of critical items of a train. This method can improve the safety of a train control system and compensate for the lack of control when autonomic control fails. This paper investigates the parallel control mechanism and expounds the application condition of parallel control, the system structure, the synchronization mechanism, and the law of control. Meanwhile, this paper also explores the parallel control between the onboard equipment and the ground equipment in an ATP system, and the validity, reliability, and safety of train control systems are improved. At the end, this paper analyzes and compares the reliability and safety of the self-disciplined control system and parallel control system by establishing a reliability model.