On track with TETRA
americas
Richard Lambley meets another of Brazil’s TETRA users: Supervia, a regional commuter railway operator now preparing for a vast increase in passenger numbers
Station. From this point, some 260 kilometres of commuter lines operated by Supervia extend into the outlying districts, carrying half a million passengers every day. As the crowds build up in Central Station at the start of the
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evening rush-hour, you can gain an impression of what this passenger load feels like. But it’s soon going to be far heavier: according to Supervia’s forecasts, the numbers will grow to one million by 2015. To cope with this demand, the company has ordered
dozens of new trains to add to its fl eet. At the same time, it is working to increase the capacity of the existing tracks by introducing new signalling methods – the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) technology used by many of the world’s most advanced railways. As part of the project, Supervia has replaced its mobile
radio network – a now-obsolete analogue system from Telefunken – with a IP-based TETRA system by Teltronic. Seven base stations were needed to cover the mountainous terrain, plus a gateway repeater to serve an outlying shadow area. Together, these supply solidly reliable voice coverage to
the ends of the lines. But they also provide the essential data transport required for implementing ATP.
Doubling capacity With ATP, Supervia will be able to reduce the headway, or spacing, between trains, enabling more of them to use the same tracks. “Nowadays on the central line we practise an
Issue 4 2011 TE TRA TODAY 31
lmost as potent an icon of Rio de Janeiro as the Sugar Loaf Mountain or the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer is the clock tower of the Central
interval of about fi ve minutes between the trains”, explains João Gouveia, director of operations. “But when the ATP is reached, it will be about three minutes or 2½ minutes. So we double the capacity. Nowadays we have about 10 trains per hour, but with the ATP it will be about 20 trains per hour.” Teltronic is currently working with the supplier of the ATP
equipment, the Canadian company Bombardier, to integrate the two systems.
Central Station (Central do Brasil), with its famous clock tower, is the main station in Rio de Janeiro and the hub of Supervia’s network
João Gouveia, director of operations for Supervia, with a map of the route network
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