Adif has contracted the Airten/Inse Rail consortium to provide the technical assistance for the supervision and control of the works for the broadcasting of the new Asfa Digital frequencies for stop pre-announcement, caution announcement and stop limit zone control aspects.

The project will improve safety by automating the indications and extending train control along the line. To do this, new type L5, L6 and double L7 digital balises, which enable Phase 2 functionality to the Asfa system as a whole, will be installed

Up to this point, in Phase 1, the stop pre-announcement and caution announcement indications are transmitted with thebalise on L1 together with the stop announcement indication at the Signal, requiring the train driver toselect in the onboard equipment the indication that corresponds to the aspect of the signal that they are going to pass andwill see.

To avoid errors and make driving more efficient, the new digital balises generate the frequenciesL5 and L6, automatically indicating the stop pre-announcement and caution announcement on-board without driver intervention,leaving L1 exclusively for the stop announcement indication. This is what is known asPhase 2 of Asfa operation.

 

Tools

The contracted consortium has proposed the use of the Daco software tool, an applicationdeveloped specifically for the technical assistance of installation projects. The tool is based on theSIFER application for inspection of railway technical installations and recording in a database, withgeoreferencing of photographs and associated documents, and is already used for the StateRailway Safety Agency.

In addition, the Asfa Tool train movement simulator will be used as a tool for design control,monitoring to ensure that the Asfa balises are correctly positioned on the line and that there are no “nesting” problems withother balises that could disturb the train speed control.