On December 29, CASCO's CTC3.0 system customized for Jinan Railway Station, was officially put into full operation, which provided a brand-new "intelligent brain" to the complex hub station. Jinan Railway Station, as an important railway hub nationwide, is located at the intersection of the four major lines, namely Beijing-Shanghai Railway, Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, Qingdao-Jinan Railway (Qingdao-Jinan High-speed Railway) and Handan-Jinan Railway. The station undertakes the transportation of both passengers and cargos, integrates high-speed railway and general-speed railway, and mixes the business of train and shunting, making its technical operations more complex.

Diagram of the Relationship between Jinan Railway Station and Surrounding Railways

Since the operation of former CTC2.0 system in Jinan Railway Station, it has been in a the mode of emergency station control, where the operations of train and shunting are done by manual button pressing on the interlocking interface, which makes the station operators' work more labor-intensive and less efficient. In addition, Jinan Railway Station involves three car yards, whose leading locomotive shifting, chassis replacement and other operations are conducted during the gaps of train receiving-departure, thus resulting in an extremely insufficient hub capacity at a high safety risk of erroneous handling; however, the previous system can not prevent the erroneous handling technically.

With the growth of businesses in Jinan Railway Station, its demand has been more and more urgent for precise management of train schedules, safety control, integrated and automated shunting as well as operational coordination of all the jobs in the station.

Learn about the Users' Needs and Training

Facing the above-mentioned situation, CASCO project teams studied the technical difficulties conscientiously and undertook the important task to upgrade the CTC system in Jinan Railway Station. Since the project's commencement in January 2021, the R&D and operation teams have been working in the construction field to participate in the entire process of on-site transportation management & operation, understand the users' needs in depth, combine their work with the practical on-site application, and analyze and implement each of users' needs in copious detail and practice, thereby overcoming the technical difficulties of CTC system in the complex hub station, and innovatively developing a CTC 3.0 system in line with the business characteristics of Jinan Railway Station.

CTC 3.0 System Completed in Jinan Railway Station

The following functions were realized after the CTC 3.0 system had been put into full operation in Jinan Railway Station:

The automatic dispatching of train schedules featuring one central station and numerous yards was realized, which achieved the accurate management of train schedules in Jinan Railway Station without changing the dispatching mode or increasing the dispatching workload.

The management of cross-yard shunting plan, automatic arrangement of locomotive shifting, entrance handling of leading locomotive operation, and automatic tracking and addition & deletion of locomotive numbers were realized in the management of shunting operation.

The information linkage and work coordination of different jobs were realized in the station, which ensured the efficient coordination of various complex operations in the train service while maintaining safety.

The automatic activation of train entrance and the one-click activation of shunting entrance were realized in Jinan Railway Station, which basically makes the button-pressing entrance handling in the station irrelevant.

The safety control related functions are realized, including the control of erroneous entrance handling, control of workflow conditions, control of anti-slip measures, and control of conflict check in accordance with the Technical Regulation 301.

The CTC3.0 system in Jinan Railway Station overcame the problems in the fine scheduling management featuring one single dispatching station and multiple yards in the station, and made substantial progress to enhance the regional centralized control of general-speed line areas; the realization of remote cross-yard shunting management in multiple zones and tracking & shunting of locomotives in multiple stations provided effective support to promote the coverage of CTC shunting function, especially for the replacement of passenger dispatching system. So far, the station has gotten rid of the reliance on the access of external systems. The coverage expansion for each position in the station enabled the train dispatching to be realized through the internal handling and transmission of CTC system, which effectively improved the integration capability of CTC system, enhanced the efficiency of transportation organization in the station, reduced the staff's workload and safety risks, and made an meaningful exploration to transform the CTC 3.0 system of complex hub stations into integrated station control platforms.