F Rolling Stock and Manufacturers (part 2) eature Alstom—Future Trends in Railway Transportation François Lacôte newcomers are emerging and both groups very-high-speed trains, Alstom is now Introduction are demanding more. And their developing the fourth generation customers—railway operating Automotrice Grande Vitesse (AGV) with There is no doubt that railway companies—are changing too! They are prototype delivery due in late 2007. The transportation has a great future—it less technical, meaning less ‘directive’ in AGV will offer more modularity, more perfectly matches the needs of our modern their technical specifications, but are operation flexibility (ability to couple three society and economy, which is becoming more commercial and more trains), and will be more energy efficient characterized by increasing mobility of business oriented in order to attract due to massive weight reduction. The goods and persons, high value of time passengers and increase revenues. AGV will meet the various needs of all saving, and demand for more safety while In this rapidly changing world, Alstom train operators worldwide. ensuring sustainable development. The wants to be the leader in offering new Together with Alstom’s redesigned duplex public is coming to appreciate more-and- products matching customers’ needs as (double-deck) TGV, the company’s AGV more the advantages of railways over demonstrated by its ‘Customer First’ cutting-edge traction technology will other transport modes—higher energy corporate slogan. complete the product line of very-high- efficiency, lower land occupation, lower speed trains from the AGV’s seating emission (CO2, pollutants), etc. capacity of 250 to 500 seats on the duplex However, although rail’s future looks Mature Railway Systems TGV and up to more than 1200 seats on brighter than it has for years, the world is the ‘jumbo’ duplex TGV. changing fast with more competition High-speed rail transport The debate over distributed traction versus between transport modes. For example, Alstom has been the major player in the centralized loco traction is finished low-cost airlines are now competing evolution towards high-speed services because Alstom has mastered both and directly with railway operators over some with over 500 very-high-speed trains leaves the choice to the customer’s sectors. To make rail’s bright future a already delivered in Europe and specific needs—distributed traction for reality, railway engineering companies throughout the world, and over single-deck medium-capacity services, must prepare and anticipate by investing 400 high-speed (more than 220 km/h) and centralized power for double-deck in new technologies. tilting trains. Alstom technology set the large-capacity services. The new transportation systems (high- world railway speed record (515.3 km/h) speed rail, tilting trains, digital signalling, in 1990, demonstrating the quality of its Digital signalling driverless metros) developed in the last concepts and proving that there are still The new European Rail Traffic 20 years are now mature worldwide some margins left for even higher Management System (ERTMS) represents standards. In addition to ‘historical’ operations speeds. a huge change in European train signalling operators extending their networks, After building three generations of TGV systems. It is the first system adopted by all European networks after many decades of each country using dedicated national systems. It is the first digital system using a ‘non-specific railway’ media transmission called GSM-R between infrastructure and rolling stock. The system is flexible and can manage the movement of any train operating on any network, offering migration of train intelligence from the trackside onto the train. This is a real signalling revolution. Now the time for implementation has come after years of development (and millions of euros in costs); Alstom is playing a key role in implementation by taking the lead in two major European New AGV rolling stock (Alstom) projects—conventional lines in 4 Japan Railway & Transport Review 42 • December 2005 Switzerland, and a new high-speed line acquired through various contracts (high- between Rome and Naples in Italy, as well speed trains (AVEs) for RENFE in Spain, as other Europe-wide projects. One metros like the London Underground, challenge is keeping with the ‘base’ locomotives as for the Burlington Northern product guaranteeing Europe-wide Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway in the USA, etc. interoperability, while taking as much in Europe (especially in the UK and Spain) account as possible of the specific needs and the USA, Alstom has launched its new of customers who are not ready to adapt ‘Design for Operability and Serviceability’ their operational rules to the new ERTMS. programme, to give the company all the It is imperative for Alstom to make ETRMS tools and methodology required to master an operational reality, because it is of all aspects of a new product in order to paramount importance in development of meet customers’ needs for products that are European cross-border operations! ready to operate and easy to maintain with the lowest life-cycle cost. By mastering Driverless metros every aspect of the train, it becomes After the great success of our first fully possible to pre-fit a train for modern driverless Singapore subway, operated by maintenance technologies, such as Singapore MRT Ltd. (see JRTR 18, conditional and predictive maintenance. New CTRL2 high-speed line in UK (Alstom) pp. 26–30), the first system in the world designed and implemented by a single Mastering system well known for its rolling stock and company, our goal is to create a unique Many of our customers have been defining signalling products, few non-engineers generic product that we are calling Urbalis and designing whole systems such as know that the company is also in charge Evolution to meet the needs of every high-speed systems for main lines and of design and delivery of the various customer worldwide. It will support both urban metros themselves. elements (power supply, catenary, slab the moving-block signalling system for On the other hand, some (mostly track) for the new Channel Tunnel Rail driver operation as well as driverless newcomers to the rail business) prefer to Link Section 2 (CTRL2) high-speed line operations, providing an easy migration focus on their operator role and require linking the Channel Tunnel and London path when the time is ripe. Support for delivery of a complete turnkey system that St. Pancras due to open for Eurostar platform doors, or any other system is ready to operate. Two good examples services in 2007. offering a very high level of safety for of the latter are Alstom’s delivery of major Clearly, any railway integrator like Alstom controlling passenger access to trains, is components for the high-speed Korean must now be able to master large another example of the system’s flexibility. Train Express (KTX) of Korea Railroad transportation systems based on (Korail) (see JRTR 40, pp. 8–13), and the comprehensive knowledge of each and fully driverless Singapore subway. every component. Future Products and Systems To execute these two large contracts, Alstom developed a comprehensive Standardized or Specific Customers first and technology engineering database including specific Products platforms knowledge about all components of such The days when customers (especially in systems, as well as mastery of all logistics The majority of European operators have Europe) were involved (at least partly) in interfaces needed to make the projects a a long history of defining products (rolling rolling stock design and fed their expertise success. The successful day-to-day stock, power supply, signalling, in operations and maintenance into new- operations of these two systems catenaries) they need. Consequently, product development have passed. demonstrates Alstom’s capacity to design, during product development, they were European rolling-stock companies now build, manage, and deliver high-quality closely involved in design review, perform development using their own transportation systems that integrate the prototype testing at their own facilities, resources, requiring increases in their specificities and operational practices of and integrating maintenance and expertise in new fields, such as operations pre-existing networks for customers operations requirements. and maintenance engineering. Based on anywhere in the world. Under these circumstances, they were its world-leading maintenance expertise As another example, although Alstom is prepared to pay for development costs and Japan Railway & Transport Review 42 • December 2005 5 Rolling Stock and Manufacturers (part 2) could accept a development schedule that must have rheostatic braking for safety. Citadis—Standardization and included a debugging period early in the Consequently, even the two very high- Customization new product life cycle. However, this is speed Duplex TGV and AGV both have no longer true for any customer. Now rheostatic and regenerative braking. The new Citadis LRV product range is an products must be delivered on a very tight Another and complementary way to save example of the genuine synthesis Alstom schedule, fully ready for operation with energy is to reduce train weight. This is a is achieving in developing new products operating and maintenance rules permanent ongoing project for Alstom and typifies what the company aims to integrated. And the development cost engineers based on intelligent design