See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/265634056

Convergence of Information Technology and Control Systems in Railway

Transportation Service Systems

Article · June 2011

CITATIONS READS

0 99

8 authors, including:

Hiromitsu Kato
Hitachi, Ltd.
25 PUBLICATIONS   53 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Systems Engineering Manager Network Rail Traffic Management Systems View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Hiromitsu Kato on 05 September 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Convergence of Information Technology and Control Systems in Railway Transportation Service Systems 154

Convergence of Information Technology and Control

Systems in Railway Transportation Service Systems

Tetsuya Ogawa OVERVIEW: Railways play an important role in Japan and the country has
Hideki Osumi well-developed railway services both in its major cities and on inter-city
Satoru Nagai routes. Railway services have evolved in part as a way for people to commute
to work or school and mission-critical systems have been implemented to
Masakazu Ito
support railway operations and ensure that services are punctual even
Hiromitsu Kato, Dr. Eng. during the morning and evening rush hours when train operation timetables
Takumi Fushiki, Dr. Eng. are particularly busy. Coordination between these mission-critical systems
will also be a requirement for the ongoing future development of railway
services. We intend to continue contributing to the development of social
infrastructure through railway systems by supporting, across different
systems and different railway operators, services that provide links to other
communities and are part of the social framework through the convergence
of information and control technologies we have built up over many years
and by strengthening their role in a service platform.

INTRODUCTION operators resulting in complex railway networks that

TRANSPORTATION of people is increasing as our operate in a high-density environment with mutual
society grows and the demand for railway services interconnections and various different fare structures.
that can provide high-speed and high-capacity For inter-city transport, high-speed Shinkansen
transportation is becoming greater. The number of services operate with a frequency not seen anywhere
train rides taken in Japan in 2006 was 22,243 million, else in the world. These Japanese railway systems have
more than anywhere else in the world by some allowed railway operators to provide a high degree of
margin, making Japan one of the world’s leading punctuality and improved convenience for passengers.
railway nations (1). As a result, Japan’s railway systems are recognized
A major feature of railway systems in Japan is that for giving their users a high level of peace of mind
urban areas are served by a number of different railway about transportation and for having made a major

Information systems Control systems

Train control system

Travel industry system

Total
Smartcard railway
ticketing system
solutions

Equipment system Power management system

Digital signage Rolling stock management system

System for displaying

Seat reservation Signaling system
guidance information
system
in the event of an emergency

Fig. 1—Information and Control Systems that Support Railways.

Mission-critical systems for information and control respectively support today’s railway systems.
 Hitachi Review Vol. 60 (2011), No. 3 155

contribution to the country’s economic progress. requirements of the different JR companies and to
In recent years, railway operators have moved improve its expandability and maintainability(2).
beyond providing a means of transport to transform (2) Smartcard ticketing system
themselves into lifestyle partners who help underpin The first smartcard ticketing system to appear for
people’s daily activities by utilizing their transportation railway services in Japan was the Suica* system of
network which spans the entire country to construct the East Japan Railway Company introduced in 2001
comfortable lifestyle spaces on the routes that link which can now be used in all of Japan’s major cities.
railway stations and centers of activity. As a total A network extending from Hokkaido to Kyushu was
solution partner who supports these railway operators, established in March 2010 which allows compatibility
Hitachi supplies total solutions for railways in which of various different smartcards.
information and control converge and which cover not In addition to the convenience of non-contact
only mission-critical railway systems such as power operation and security, smartcard ticketing also
distribution equipment, rolling stock, signaling, seat supports the reliability of payment processing by
reservation, and train control but also a wide range of allowing data to be checked at center systems.
other fields extending as far as lifestyle services such Prevention of illegal use is handled by the center
as distribution systems and financial systems. systems that manage the smartcards. The data
This article gives an overview of mission-critical produced each time a smartcard is used at a ticket
railway systems together with an outline of services gate, ticket vending machine, or other railway station
in which information and control converge and the system are aggregated on station servers installed in
technologies that support them. each railway station and the data from each station
are in turn collected by a center system to manage
INFORMATION AND CONTROL SYSTEMS monetary balances and maintain usage records for
THAT SUPPORT RAILWAYS each card. Other services include reissuing lost cards
The mission-critical systems that support railways and printing out details of card usage.
can be broadly divided into information systems and
control systems (see Fig.  1). The following sections Mission-critical Control Systems
describe the information and control systems with Two representative examples of mission-critical
which we have been involved in the past together with control systems introduced by East Japan Railway
their technical features. Company to support railways operation are the
COSMOS (computerized safety maintenance and
Mission-critical Information Systems operation systems of Shinkansen) for the Shinkansen
(1) Seat reservation system and the ATOS (autonomous decentralized transport
The MARS (multi-access reservation system) operation control system) for the Tokyo region.
developed and operated by Railway Information COSMOS entered operation in November
Systems Co., Ltd. links to terminals in JR (Japan 1995 based on key concepts that included a major
Railways) Ticket Offices (“Midori-no madoguchi”), the reorganization of business operations, promotion of
Internet, and the travel industry systems of major travel labor-saving practices, increased speed, support for
agencies and JR companies to provide a wide range more diverse transport planning, and provision of more
of services and products to meet the needs of railway comprehensive services for railway users. COSMOS
users. These include tickets (including tickets with performs integrated management of the full range
designated seating), monthly and other passes, event of Shinkansen transport control tasks including the
tickets, accommodation vouchers, and group travel. preparation of train operation timetables and other
Since its origins as a seat reservation system in the types of planning, train operations, and equipment
1960s, MARS has led the world as a byword in online monitoring, control and maintenance. It is a large,
systems, always incorporating the latest in information wide-area distributed system comprised of seven sub-
and communications technology. As the sales policies systems (3), (4).
of the various JR companies have become more ATOS supports the very high density of train
diverse and developed independently since the breakup operations in the Tokyo region and commenced
and privatization of Japanese National Railways operation on the Chuo Line in 1996 with the aim of
service, the system was upgraded to MARS501 in
2004 to provide a prompt and flexible response to the * Suica is a registered trademark of East Japan Railway Company.
 Convergence of Information Technology and Control Systems in Railway Transportation Service Systems 156

improving services for railway users and providing safe convergence of mission-critical information and
and reliable train control. ATOS is a large distributed control systems will allow the provision of new
rail transport control system that is used not only for services for railway users that go beyond what can be
train control but also to automate passenger guidance achieved with the conventional arrangement of railway
and manage maintenance work using a maintenance systems (see Fig. 2).
management system (5), (6). For example, an abstracted model of the railway
Both COSMOS and ATOS use an autonomous system as a way for people to move around will
distributed architecture to perform automatic control contain data about the transportation and actions of
of signals and points on lines with high traffic densities. people. Through the “visualization” of transportation
These unique systems deliver better efficiency and and actions by converting this huge amount of data
improvements in dispatching for lines with high into knowledge, services for individuals can be refined,
traffic density, including functions that were outside transport operations can be made more efficient, and
the scope of previous train control systems such as better passenger services can be provided.
predicting the future location of trains, disseminating Implementing these convergent services will
information about timetable changes to train crews, require: (1) ways of achieving flexible coordination
and distributing regulatory information including of information and control systems despite their
weather data. different characteristics, and (2) ways of converting
huge amount of data into knowledge and performing
CONCEPTS BEHIND SERVICES AT optimum control of the overall system. The following
CONVERGENCE OF INFORMATION AND section describes the technical framework for turning
CONTROL these convergent services into reality.
Enhancements to mission-critical information and
control systems have helped boost the operational TECHNICAL FRAMEWORK FOR
efficiency of railway operators and improve services CONVERGENT SERVICES
for railway users. What is believed necessary to help System Requirements for Implementing
the railway industry achieve further progress in the Convergent Services
future is to provide transport services with better Implementing services in which information
safety, comfort, and convenience from the perspective and control converge will require the linkage of
of railway users along with the construction of relationships between the data managed by the various
comfortable lifestyle spaces. We believe that the information and control systems so that this data

Provide more comprehensive Improve environmental

services by expanding Improve transport efficiency. Improve passenger services.
performance.
communication channels. • Dispatching • Station services
• CO2 emission reduction
• For individuals • Train operations, etc. • In-train services
• Energy conservation
• For partners

Improve customer services

through system optimization.
Train control
Electric conversion
Business systems Trains
and power
Identify system optimization rules
Huge amount of data by converting information into knowledge Huge amount of data
(convergence of information and control).

Information systems Control systems

Mission-critical cloud computing platform Fault-tolerant computing platforms for realtime control

Strengthen IT platforms. Strengthen control system platforms.

IT: information technology CO2 : carbon dioxide

Fig. 2—Overview of Services Made Possible by Convergence of Information and Control.

Customer services oriented to the perspective of railway system users can be provided through the convergence of information and
control systems and their use for knowledge creation.
 Hitachi Review Vol. 60 (2011), No. 3 157

can be used across different systems in ways that go Convergent services

(including making “transportation” and “actions” visible)
beyond what the previous structure allowed. One way
of realizing this linkage is to manage the data from
all of these systems together in a central database. Knowledge service platform (KaaS)
However, the problem with this approach is that the Adapter
Information and control (1) Data exchange in standardized
effects carry over to all the other systems if some data formats between systems
coordination platform
data items in a particular system need to be extended. History data Transportation
and actions
Accordingly, data federation techniques are required
Operational
that maintain the independence of the individual information
information and control systems. Adapter Adapter Adapter
The huge amount of data will be shared across the (2) Individual
Smartcard Seat reservation Train selection,
entire railway system when exchanging data between ticketing system control linkage, and
systems system processing
these independent systems. Scalability is required to
Information systems Control systems
the system in order to handle the ongoing increase in
KaaS: knowledge as a service
data quantity when extracting knowledge from the
data. Similarly, realtime knowledge processing will be Fig. 3—Convergence of Information Systems and Control
required to incorporate the results of “visualization” Systems in System Architecture for Services.
Knowledge processing of huge amount of data can be achieved
of transportation and actions.
using an “information and control coordination platform” to
Hitachi proposes two technologies to meet
provide loosely coupled coordination of various information
these requirements: an “information and control and control systems together with a “knowledge service
coordination platform” and a “knowledge service platform.”
platform” (see Fig. 3).

Information and Control Coordination Platform knowledge from the huge amount of data produced
The information and control coordination platform by social infrastructure (7). The use of KaaS to perform
uses a bus architecture to connect different independent realtime extraction of the required information from
systems and provides a mechanism for converting the the large amount of information contained in these
data generated by individual systems into a standard huge amount of data allows services to be provided
format. This allows a greater level of data sharing for that are tailored to the transportation and actions of
exchanging data between systems than is possible individual people.
with the existing arrangement of individual systems. The adoption of parallel distributed processing
By using separate adapters to select, link, and process in KaaS provides a system configuration with a high
the required data, the train control and other individual level of scalability that can cope with future increase
systems can implement loosely coupled data federation in data volumes simply by adding computing resources
by converting data into a form suitable for use within without having to make program changes.
a system without affecting other systems. Also, the
adapters used to interface to control systems include CONCLUSIONS
mechanisms for prioritizing the cyclic processing of the This article has given an overview of mission-
control systems while handling access requests from critical railway systems together with an outline of
the information systems. This allows the coordination services in which information and control converge
of information and control systems without degrading and the technologies that support them.
the coherence of important control functions. We intend to create new businesses that can
further improve services for railway users as well as
Knowledge Service Platform developing technologies for this business.
The knowledge service platform will provide We are also looking to apply the concept of
convergent services with high added-value by convergent services described in this article at a
extracting and utilizing the knowledge contained number of different railway operators to provide
in the huge amount of data being exchanged on the optimal transport services in terms of the overall
information and control coordination platform. Hitachi railway network together with savings in system
has proposed a KaaS (knowledge as a service) platform development and operating costs through system
that provides techniques for extracting valuable sharing. Meanwhile, recent years have seen ongoing
 Convergence of Information Technology and Control Systems in Railway Transportation Service Systems 158

activity in the area of smart cities equipped with social ABOUT THE AUTHORS
infrastructure that delivers a sustainable lifestyle and Tetsuya Ogawa
environment while alleviating global warming, and Joined East Japan Railway Company in 1996,
railway systems have come to be recognized as a form and now works at the ATOS Project, Electrical &
of transport with a low impact on the environment. Signal Network System Department. He is currently
engaged in the development of ATOS.
By applying the convergent services concept to
smart cities also, we believe that it can help optimize
mobility across all parts of the social infrastructure
and improve energy efficiency. Hideki Osumi
To make a reality of smart cities and coordination Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1996, and now works at
between different railway operators, we aim to the ATOS Center, Transport Information Systems
Division, Information & Control Systems Company.
contribute to progress in social infrastructure He is currently engaged in the development of
through railway systems by packaging our combined railway transportation systems. Mr. Osumi is a
information and control technologies with knowledge member of The Institute of Electrical Engineers of
creation techniques and supplying the required Japan (IEEJ).
technologies and systems based on the needs of our
business partners. Satoru Nagai
Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1997, and now works at
the Transport Management Systems & Solution
Department, Transport Management & Control
REFERENCES Systems Division, Transportation Systems, Rail
(1) Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Systems Company. He is currently engaged in the
“Trends in Railway Passenger Volumes in Different development of railway transportation systems.
Countries–Transport Statistics Digest,” http://www.
mlit.go.jp/k-toukei/koutsukanren/koutsukanren.html in
Japanese. Masakazu Ito
(2) J. Hayashi et al., “‘EP8000’ Introduction Example of the Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1979, and now works at
Ticketing and Reservation Systems: Railway Information the Transportation Information Systems Division,
Information & Control Systems Company. He is
Systems Co., Ltd. ‘JR-MARS’,” Hitachi Hyoron 85, pp. 377–
currently engaged in new business development
380 (May 2003) in Japanese.
for the railway industry. Mr. Ito is a member of the
(3) H. Tanabe, “Progress and Future Prospects for Shinkansen Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ).
Operation Management System,” Consultants Hokkaido,
No. 110, pp. 68–76 (Oct. 2006) in Japanese.
(4) East Japan Railway Company, “JR East 2009 Corporate Hiromitsu Kato, Dr. Eng.
Profile,” http://www.jreast.co.jp /youran/pdf/jre_youran_all. Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1995, and now works at
pdf (2009) in Japanese. the 1st Research Department, Yokohama Research
(5) F. Kitahara et al., “Expansion of Train Traffic Control System Laboratory. He is currently engaged in research
Supporting Super High-Density Transportation for Tokyo into information and control system architectures.
Dr. Kato is a member of the IPSJ, The Society of
Metropolitan Area,” Hitachi Hyoron 81, pp. 237–240 (Mar.
Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE), and The
1999) in Japanese.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
(6) T. Okada et al., “Development of ATOS Extension for (IEEE).
Yokosuka/Sobu Rapid Line,” Transactions of the 46th
Railway Cybernetics Symposium, No.409 (Nov. 2009) in
Japanese. Takumi Fushiki, Dr. Eng.
(7) R. Ueda et al., “KaaS Knowledge Service Platform Joined Hitachi, Ltd. in 1998, and now works at
Facilitating Innovation in Social Infrastructure,” Hitachi the Green Mobility Research Department, Hitachi
Review 59, pp. 224–228 (Dec. 2010). Research Laboratory. He is currently engaged in
research into railway transportation systems. Dr.
Fushiki is a member of the IPSJ.

View publication stats