Safe control technology for tomorrow's rail transportation

As a technology leader with more than 70 years of experience in safety and automation technology, Pilz has been working on the transition in the rail industry for a while now. However, with the national introduction of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System), among other things, this transition will be even faster. "Digital and interconnected solutions are the future in railroad technology," says Jan van der Heide, Business development manager BU Rail at Pilz, "and standardization is the key word here."

To enable future partial replacement of track elements, European infrastructure managers need standardization of interfaces between points, level crossings and (temporary) signals. "With the EULYNX approach, for example, the overall Central Safety System (CSS) can communicate with subsystems (track elements) from different suppliers," said Van der Heide, explaining, "EULYNX is a European initiative of 13 infrastructure managers to standardize interfaces in the future communication, signaling and automation system for digital control commands."

Standardization 

The Central Safety System (will be within ERTMS) the core of digital railroads, according to Van der Heide. He therefore thinks it is a good development that CSS suppliers want (or need) to commit to that standard in the future. "With EULYNX you could say that the language will soon be standardized, but then you're not there yet. Because the side of the track elements (switches, among others) must also start speaking that same language. This is why we are making our products EULYNX-ready and our system is being SIL 4 certified, so that we can relieve our customers of this important transition." At Innotrans in 2018, Pilz already showed that it could be done. At the last edition of Innotrans (2022), we were able to see EULYNX integrated into Pilz's new PLC. 

Safety as a priority

"In addition to significantly reducing the life-cycle costs for track elements, the PLC system brings other great benefits: because it has many more diagnostic capabilities compared to traditional mechanical systems, you can also get much more out of it, such as continuous monitoring of the control system to determine when maintenance is needed." Useful and efficient, in other words. But above all, safe. "Where a supplier is responsible for the proper construction of a switch, for example, we ensure that the interface works properly, is always up-to-date and runs according to the latest technology and rail standards. Because where people are transported, safety is priority number one!"

Innovation partner for ProRail and others.

Pilz started a Rail business unit internationally to develop innovative rail applications, solutions and ideas to accelerate the national digitalization drive. "It makes us an important innovation partner for a changing rail sector committed to digitalization," says Van der Heide, citing as an example, "ProRail is working hard to implement a new European train protection system ERTMS. It is one of the biggest operations ever. ERTMS will help ensure that we can also provide the Netherlands with safe and reliable train traffic in the future, connected to a European railroad area which makes international travel easier. With the tender Snellere Aanpak ERTMS (ASAP ERTMS), ProRail was looking for innovative solutions to speed up its rollout. Pilz subscribed to this and made a business case and project proposal for this. "The idea is to use an EULYNX adapter that temporarily converts the old techniques to digital techniques using the EULYNX protocol. We are working with ProRail, an engineering firm and external testing agencies that will help us get this project through the testing phase and make it a success. A great first step in the digitalization drive towards EULYNX," Van der Heide concludes.