metro networks Rapid transit
TETRA digital networks have become the natural choice for almost all new mobile radio installations in urban light rail and metro systems. Alun Lewis examines the reasons
Te usual disasters – flood, fire, war and earthquakes – may have caused the odd blip in the trend, but the direction has been overwhelmingly one way. Over the past century, that trend has begun accelerating
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Above: Hong Kong, one of the many Asian metro systems which has adopted TETRA for its mobile communications. Today, railways account for as much as 25 per cent of global TETRA activity
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sharply – and that in turn is now creating huge new growth for TETRA in mass transit and metro applications – especially in what used to be called ‘the developing countries’. According to the United Nations, we have just passed
an important tipping point in human demographics, with more than half the total population now living in cities or urban areas. Add to that the fact that 80 per cent of that urban growth is happening in Africa and Asia and we start to see some of the potential here in what are often ‘green field’ projects, building on the already well-established use of TETRA in supporting European urban transport systems.
f there’s been one overwhelming force at work through the last 9000 years or so of human history it’s been the inexorable move of people from the countryside to cities.
A demanding environment Mass transit networks – essentially using packet-switching technology on humans – already use a variety of different systems including tram, overland train, bus, escalators, moving walkways and even that ageing symbol of the 21st century high-tech world, the monorail. In some parts of the world, many already have TETRA-based communications supporting them. It is, however, in the metro or largely underground-based systems that TETRA’s strengths and public safety heritage bring overwhelming benefits. For a start, just consider the physical environment that
it has to operate in – as Markus Kalt, vice president for business operations EMEA for the radio infrastructure specialists Andrew Corporation, explains: “At its most basic, equipment that’s going to be placed in hot, damp and dusty train tunnels needs to meet environmental specifications like IP65 to ensure its operational integrity. “When metro communications systems are being planned, the overwhelming aim must be to keep the amount of
TE TRA TODAY Issue 2 February - April 2011
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