MEETING
Nouvelle-Aquitaine: A Key Region for European Train Geolocation





On 7
February 2025, on the site of the Charentes-Périgord industrial Technicentre,
in the presence of Alain Rousset - Director of the Region, and Xavier Ouin -
Director of Rolling Stock, the inauguration of the first renovated TER trains
also provided an opportunity to unveil a geolocation experiment initiated by
Tech4Rail, in support of Europe's Rail FP2-R2DATO project.
After an
initial test campaign carried out on a Nouvelle-Aquitaine TER train in 2023,
Tech4Rail is once again teaming up with the region for a new series of tests,
this time under the aegis of Europe.
Last
December, a BGC train belonging to the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region was fitted
with several geolocation systems supplied by Alstom, Airbus and Exail, coupled
with GNSS/4G satellite positioning antennae installed on its roof. This train
will run until the end of 2025 in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region to collect
data,’ explains Valentin Barreau, head of Tech4Rail's Location team.
The aim is
to assess the achievable performance of on-board satellite positioning, to
check that it can meet the performance and operating safety objectives of
safety systems such as ERTMS. This work is being carried out jointly by players
in the rail sector - Europe's Rail JU - and those in the satellite space
sector, such as the European Space Agency (ESA).
A
European approach
These
trials are funded by the European Union and will feed into Europe's Rail's
FP2-R2DATO project. The FP2-R2DATO project is dedicated to the digitalisation
and automation of rail systems, and is developing essential technological
building blocks (telecoms, mobile blocking, perception, etc.). Among these
building blocks, train geolocation using satellite technologies (GNSS) is at
the heart of tomorrow's automation systems.
Whether
used in this European project or in other applications, train geolocation
offers three types of benefits:
- Improving
the robustness of the transport plan and passenger information,
- increase
capacity and frequency on the lines, at a constant infra-stationary level,
- reduce
energy consumption.
Other
‘collateral’ benefits, such as infrastructure monitoring (STC), are being
studied to take advantage of these precise train positions.