Volume 4, Issue 3, March – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

Real Time Train Tracking System with On-Board

Colour Light Signals.
Moses Linda Maseko
Transnet Freight Rail, Ermelo, South Africa

Abstract:- Knowing the location and being able to track research on real time tracking of vehicle through the use of
trains in real time is of high importance to cus-tomers Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS together with Global
and train owners. Train planning and scheduling can be System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is mostly used on
optimized if train location is known in real time. An vehicles for theft prevention and as a retrieval device
increase in signalling track circuits and signals failures (Punekar at al. 2013). GPS and GSM will be discussed in
due to signalling cable thefts has had a sig-nificant impact chapter 3.2 and 3.3 of this article. Track circuits are used for
on railway companies delivering services to customers. track vacancy detection. Track circuits failures will result in
Thus this paper presents a real time tracking system for stoppage of train movements through that track section until
locomotives as a secondary/ replacement for track the section is verified and declared safe for train movements.
circuits. The system uses 5G as com-munication means to Thereafter, trains can be authorized through that section.
send data between remote train control system and When there is a failure on colour light signals that also results
locomotive(s); the location of the train is obtained in train authorizations on those signals until the fault is fixed.
through GPS, RFID. An artificial neural network is used Train authorization relies on oral communication through
for processing, switching between the various methods of telephonic conversations, hence, miscommunication between
obtaining location and communicates with remote train train driver and operator may lead to train collision on
control system. The on-board colour light display unit is railway system. This paper presents a system of train tracking
in sync with signals in the field and it acts as a backup for and locating through RFID technology, GPS. Communicate
signals failure. The sys-tem can be used as either a with relay room, and CTC is through GSM on the
primary or secondary system since it will be incorporated locomotives and Radio Frequency. Train scheduling will be
with interlocking. The information of train location will optimized as each train location is known and failure on track
be sent to the relay room for incorporation with circuits and signals can be mitigated by this system.
interlocking, and sent to centralised traffic control (CTC)
through fibre optic or 5G. II. SYSTEM OVERVIEW

I. INTRODUCTION A. System Block Diagram

The proposed system block diagram is illustrated in
Railway companies across the world are experiencing Fig. 1. and Fig. 2. The system consists of two units, namely
gradual increase in signalling copper cable thefts every year. an on-board unit and relay room unit. The on-board unit is
Railway transport is a major enabler of economic growth as it installed in locomotives, and is used for processing
transports freight in bulk and transports people in high locomotive location data and controlling the colour light
numbers, thus reducing road traffic. Increase in signalling display unit on the locomotive(s). More-over, it also
cable theft has had a negative impact on railways due to the communicates with the relay room and remote control office.
increase in system down-time, which has resulted in The relay room unit is used for sending the location data to
customer dissatisfaction and loss of revenue. There has been the interlocking in the relay room and also for sending data to
an increase of rail freight on South African roads due to the rail vehicle in the station. The relay room (RR) unit has a
uncertainty of the railway system due to increase in system controller that performs the processing of data received from
failures and down-times. on-board unit either through GSM or Radio Frequency
RX/TX module. The RR controller maps rail vehicle
Safety of private and public vehicle has been a major location(s) with track circuits position and then sends the data
concern over the years, therefore there is an increase in to the interlocking interface unit.

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Volume 4, Issue 3, March – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
relay room only if there is a change on the infor-mation or it
will send a ‘previous state message’ to the RR unit.

Fig 1:- Block diagram for on-board unit

Fig 3:- Flow chart for the on-board unit

III. ON-BOARD UNIT

A. RFID Network
RFID Network system consist of three units/
components, namely an RFID reader, RFID antenna and
RFID tags. In Figure 4, is a network of RFID tags installed at
every 500m sleeper. Each tag is associated with a par-ticular
track circuit, therefore once a tag is scanned the associated
Fig 2:- Block diagram for Relay Room unit track circuit will drop as the train moves. The system uses
passive tags which do not have an internal power source.
B. System Flow Chart Passive tags are powered by the electromagnetic energy
Fig.3. illustrates the flow chart of the proposed system. transmitted by the RFID reader, when the tag is in the ‘read
Location data of the rail vehicle is obtained through the RFID zone’. RFID reader is in-stalled on the train and the tags are
network and GPS. When GSM connection has been installed on the sleepers since tags are not expensive as
established, the system first initialises all its function by first compared to read-ers.
running a system communication test with dummy location
and RFID tag data. Radio Fre-quency communication test
between the rail vehicle with the nearest station follows.
Then system operation starts, scan RFID tags and get GPS
data, with the information on the RFID tag or GPS data the
processing of the data is done by an artificial neural network
and the result is sent to the relay room unit via GSM or RF
module. The artificial neural network will send data to the

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Volume 4, Issue 3, March – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
process called trilateration (Kalpan 1996). When there are
four or more satellites visible, the GPS receiver can
determine the devices 3D position (latitude, longitude and
alti-tude) (Marais at al. 2000).

A GPS receiver is installed on the rail vehicle for the

purpose of determining the vehicles location and speed. The
location data of the rail vehicle is transmitted to the rail room
via GSM and RF modems.

C. Communication GSM and RF

The Global system for Mobile Communication (GSM)
is a cell phone based technology used in different parts of the
Fig 4:-Railway line with RFID Tags installed world. GSM modem operates in the same principle as mobile
phone, it accepts sim card and operates over a subscription of
a mobile operator. GSM networks operate in different
frequency band, and the most common operating frequencies
are 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz and 1900MHz (Punekar at
al. 2013). GSM modem use AT commands for sending and
receiving SMS messages through a process called circuit
switch-ing. Short Message Service (SMS) allows users to
send up to 160 characters and it is the cheapest form of
communicating. In the proposed system GSM is used for
communicating with the nearest relay room and also with the
CTC in case the whole station is out meaning there is no
Fig 5:- Interface between Tag, Reader (Autodesk) power in the station. In such an event the GSM
communicates directly with CTC interlocking interface.
The network losses may also be accounted for in the
value of the tag antenna gain, GT. Both the reader anten-na
gain, GR. and the tag gain GT. are then expressed relative to
an isotropic antenna (Lee at al. 2008). From the observations
of power flux density at the tag, considering λ as the
wavelength, we get both the tag voltage as power as
illustrated in the equations relating to RFID power and
voltage equations:

Fig 6:- SIM900A GSM Modem (Pantechsolutions)

Radio frequency is any electromagnetic wave

frequencies that lie in the range extending from around 3 kHz
to 300 GHz. The most common wireless technologies use
B. Global Positioning System (GPS) radio waves. Examples of applications of radio wireless
The Global Positioning System is a network of satellites technology include GPS units, wireless computer mice,
orbiting the earth at altitudes of 20 000 km. Each of the GPS keyboard, broadcast television, etc. (Agarwal 2014). The use
satellites transmits information about its position and time at of wireless communication increases the likelihood of data
regular intervals. These signals are in-tercepted by GPS unintentionally being received at the receiver which may be
receivers, which calculates how far each satellite is based on from other external sources with wireless transmission
the time it took for the mes-sage to arrive. The GPS receiver capability. An authentication protocol must be incorporated
must get information on at least three satellites for it to into the transmitted data so that the receiver can reject
calculate 2D move-ment, to pinpoint its location through the unauthenticated transmissions from other wireless sources

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Volume 4, Issue 3, March – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
and this protocol also protects against random noise in the
relevant frequency range. There are different authentication
protocols but in this design encapsulation of data within a
“data packet” is used as an authentication protocol.

D. Microcontroller and Display Unit

A microcontroller is a small computer on a single
integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and
programmable input/output peripherals, it can be used as an
embedded system (Mazidi at al.). Microcontrollers are
designed for embedded applications, in contrast to
microprocessors used in personal computers or other general-
purpose applications processors. The colour light display
system consists of two LED clusters, one RGB cluster for
red, yellow, and green signal aspect and another RGB for
yellow two, white and other aspect. The RGB cluster are
controlled by Pulse Width Modulation of the microcontroller Fig 8:- Neural network structure
in order to obtain the required signal aspects.
In the proposed system an Artificial Neural Network
(ANN) is used for processing, switching between the various
methods of obtaining location and communicates with remote
train control system. Moreover, the neural network will be
train to detect failures on the current system and prompt the
system to start operating until the failure is fixed. The ANN
will perform the mapping of location and RFID data with the
associated track circuits. Relay room will communicate with
on-board unit on a train(s) in the station; it is important for
the ANN to send an ‘end of station’ signal to the on-board
unit for the on-board to start communicating with the RR unit
on the next station.
Fig 7:- Colour Light Signals Display Unit
B. Interlocking Interface Unit
The basic operation of the interlocking interface unit is
The LCD on the colour light display unit displays the
based on the type of interlocking used on a specific station,
signal number and route indication. This unit will be the either mechanical or electronic. The station is operating/
visual display for train drivers when there are cable thefts and
running on electronic interlocking; the system will be easily
other cable related failures.
interfaced as there is no need for converting the data into
equivalent electrical signals to pick relevant relays as is the
The microcontroller performs the function of case with spoorplan interlocking. In the case of mechanical
processing data from GPS and RFID network, and interlocking, the interface unit will have the capability to
encapsulate the data before sending it to the RR unit via RF convert all the electronic data to electrical power for the
module or GSM modem.
interlocking to complete.
IV. RELAY ROOM UNIT V. CONCLUSIONS
A. Artificial Neural Network This paper documented the proposed real time tracking
An artificial network is composed of large number of of trains as a mitigation for cable theft or fault. Im-
interconnected units called neurons that have a certain natural plementation of this system will results in improving railway
tendency for learning information from the outside world.
operation and increase freight railed as it will ensure
Neural networks are good in estimating or approximation of optimum planning, and usage of resources. The system
functions that may depend on a lot of variables (Gardner at utilises GPS, GSM, and RFID technologies on the track and
al. 1998). The neural network must be trained in order to on the rail vehicle. From the feasibility study of the system it
learn and understand the system and because of non-linearity
clear that the system will improve the current system by
capability it can ap-proximate any function.
ensuring continuous train movement in the event of system
breakdown.

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Volume 4, Issue 3, March – 2019 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
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