Architecture Design and Reliability Evaluation of a Novel Software-Defined Train Control System

Communication-based train control (CBTC) has been the prevailing technology of the urban transit signaling system. However, CBTC also faces a few issues to extend and maintain because of its complicated structure. This paper presents a novel urban transit signaling system architecture, software-defined train control (SDTC), which is based on cloud and high-speed wireless communication technology. The core functions of the proposed SDTC, including the onboard controller, are implemented in the cloud platform, with only sensors and input-output (JO) units remaining on the trackside and the train. Because of the scalable framework, the system function can be expanded according to the user's demand, making signaling as a service possible. With warm standby server redundancy, SDTC has better reliability. Compared with the traditional CBTC architecture, the mean time between failures is improved by 39% by calculating typical project parameters by the Markov model based on some assumptions.