Technology Features Research of Japanese Railway Signal System.doc

Technology Features Research of Japanese Railway Signal System This paper begins with the developing history and technical classification of railway transportation, introduces the railway control system used in Japan, analyzes its technology features respectively from the aspects of electronic, computer and communication technology, and at last proposes the technical developing direction of future train control system. 1 Introduction In the early days of railways ,there was no signaling system. A station attendant showed the signal of go or stop by gestures. But people would make some mistakes which caused accidents. Signaling system prevents the accidents efficiently . Early signal system in Japan was Automatic Traffic Stop (ATS) devices. This device could automatically stop the train when it received the stop signal. Even if the driver ignored the alarm of the train-borne stop device, the device on the track could stop the train automatically. ATS-P (Automatic Train Stop Protection) was developed to raise efficiency. Using the responder to send or receive data signal, ATS-P system transmits information of the distance about the next stop to the train via the track, and then the system generates a train speed-checking pattern with these information. ATC (Automatic Train Control) system is developed to resolve problems of ATS-P. In ATC system,safety operation procedure will be activated to guarantee the safe performance of the train when the train when the train operator made mistakes. To meet the needs of the modern massive high-efficient transportation, new traffic control systems are emerging such as ATACS (Advanced Train Administration Communication System), CBTC (Communication Based Train Control), etc. With the integration of railway signal and communication technology, track structure of new pattern and additional train-borne functions. This paper proposes the features of the current railway control system in Japan with the development history of the railway