Members of the Standardisation Forum include all of Korea’s railway operators, as well as universities and numerous industrial companies in the sector.
Mr Guillaume Gach, UIC Telecom Design Authority and member of the UIC FRMCS 3GPP Taskforce, gave a speech at SRF2020 in a special session on global standards for the smart railway. Recalling UIC’s mission and its importance around the world, he discussed the GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communications – Railways) designed by UIC, a key element of the European ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) standard.
The ETSI Technical Committee on Rail Telecommunications participates in standardisation, insuring full interoperability of the system.
Explaining that GSM-R cannot fulfil current railway requirements, Mr Gach presented the FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) - UIC’s solution for the future of the railways.
With the development of FRMCS, UIC and its members are offering railway operators:
- The ability to transmit, receive and use increasing volumes of data, which is at the very heart of sustainable transport;
- The advent of the digital train to deal with GSM-R obsolescence.
The FRMCS URS (User Requirements Specification) is open to all contributors, and the latest release can be downloaded from the UIC website: https://uic.org/IMG/pdf/frmcs_user_requirements_specification-fu_7100-v5.0.0.pdf
The scope of the FRMCS project is to provide overall technical conditions for the successor to GSM-R.
The 3GPP technical specifications provide generic building blocks for transport and services. Associated with ETSI and UIC, they will be part of the FRMCS specification framework.
Mr Gach presented the FRMCS standardisation process, timeline and challenges to his audience, paving the way for closer cooperation between the Korean railway industry and UIC in respect of FRMCS development and adoption.
