© Siemens 2020
Reference
The Norwegian capital Oslo is the
2019 European Green Capital – in
recognition of the city's many efforts
towards a sustainable way of life.
Public transport, and especially the
subway as an alternative to your
own car, represents an important
pillar of the concept. A modern
r adiolocation solution from Siemens
helps the operator of the sub ways
to provide a high-performance and
attractive offering.
Supporting a
s ustainable mode
of transport
SIMATIC RTLS solution supports
subway operation in Oslo
“T-Bane,” tunnel railway, is what the people of Oslo lovingly call their subway,
although just 17 out of the 101 stations are actually underground. Founded in
1928, the 115trains operated at present carry almost 350,000 passengers daily
on a rail network spanning 86km. In order to achieve the ambitious climate
goals of the city of Oslo –reduce CO
becoming a car-free city –the subway network makes a significant contribution.
Notwithstanding the achievements made so far, Sporveien, the subway operator,
cannot rest on its laurels: Because if the residents of the Norwegian capital
are to do without the car, they need an attractive and increasingly powerful
a lternative – like the T-Bane.
emissions by 95% by 2030 and in doing so
2
siemens.com/simatic-rtls
© Siemens 2020
The trains are ser viced and repaired in the engineering workshops of Spor veien.
For years, the city, transport association, and operator
have been investing in the climate-friendly expansion of
the s ubway network. The train fleet has been undergoing
m odernization since 2007 and today is entirely equipped
with white, energy-efficient trains of the MX3000 series
from Siemens. New lines and stations are planned and
b eing implemented, such as the new Løren station on
Line4, which was opened to traffic in 2015. Sporveien is
currently working on increasing train frequency through
the central inner-city tunnel, which is shared by all lines:
In the future, 9–10trains per 15minutes are to be able to
Previously, there used to be more manual work-processes
in the depots – much due the position of the trains could
not be automatically synchronized with the digital workshop system. Manual effort, hectic phone calls, and unnecessary searches were part of the daily routine of the
employees, which caused some process-inefficiency getting
the rolling stock ready. In particular, the manual search
processes, picking out the specific train at the correct
time, did cost time. Valuable service-time elapsed quickly
if an employee in the depot had to walk around in the yard
searching for a specific train.
pass through the bottleneck, which means a capacity
i ncrease of up to 25%.
Digitalization in the workshops
Behind the scenes, too, the modernization of the subway
system is being spurred on. Digitalization is the motto here
to automate planning processes, reduce failures, improve
flexibility, gain higher efficiency and decrease response
time. Numerous digital systems are already in use at
Sporveien – e.g. digital timetable and digital maintenance
records for the trains. However, digital systems can only
process the information that is fed to them. Posing a potential
problem here, were the depots and the manual processes
around parking-lot planning and physical parking of trains.
With the SIMATICRTLS gateways, the position of the vehicles is captured
to within a few centimeters.
© Siemens 2020
The Real-Time Locating System SIMATICRTLS from Siemens
now help out to put things right. In order to do so, all trains
were equipped with transponders and antennas, which
can continuously and fully automatically be located via
so-called RTLS gateways. To this end, the transit time of
the radio signals to the transponders is determined and
compared between different gateways – within fractions
of a second. All information is fed into the visualization in
the workshops of Sporveien via the SIMATIC Locating
Manager and combined with other systems, for example,
the maintenance planning for the trains. Employees can
now see the positions of each train in each depot on large
displays and retrieve all other necessary information (What
is to be done? When must the train be back on the line?
When is the next service due?).
Locating system supplies IT systems with
real-time data
This transparency is already an important advantage of
the locating system for Christian Grønnerød, RTLS product
manager at Sporveien. “Just the visualization of the train
movements in the depots and the combination with all
other systems make the work considerably easier. Instead
of through a variety of programs, paper documentation,
and phone calls, employees now have everything at their
fingertips and with just a few mouse clicks get what they
need to perform their job!” says Grønnerød.
But that is not all. The improved and accurate planning
and provision of the trains means that the service intervals
can be maximized – which improves fleet utilization and
reduces costs. Also, solving any breakdowns is greatly
simplified, because it can be seen at a glance which train
is present in which depot. And the project team is already
thinking about more ideas – as you know, appetite comes
with eating.
The first ideas for the introduction of RTLS go back to 2017.
Initial proof-of-concept tests showed early on that the
Siemens solution is particularly well-suited to the requirements of Sporveien. First of all, the possibility to operate
SIMATICRTLS from Siemens both indoors and outdoors
spoke in favor of the system. The system scalability, too, is
an important advantage: Thus, the implementation in the
project can be carried out step by step, while still gaining
experience early on in actual operations. Last but not least,
the special industrial suitability of the components is a
d ecisive argument: Antennas and transponders are sufficiently robust for daily use in trains subject to temperature
fluctuations and vibrations, and the interfaces of the
trans ponder allows feeding of signals from the trains
(direction of travel, coupling status). There are now approximately 250gateways in use, and each train is equipped
with two transponders and antennas (at each driver's cab).
The RTL S transponders also transmit other information from
the vehicles (direction of travel, coupling status).
Optimal project progression
As project manager of Norwegian consultancy company
Bouvet, Bjørn Stokkeland was responsible for the introduction
of SIMATICRTLS. In addition to selecting the technology
supplier, numerous other aspects had to be clarified
–ranging from the conversion of the trains to the IT interfaces. Thanks to a clear expectation of results and an agile
approach with defined project sprints, the actual implementation could be completed in just a few months.
And that even though several partners were involved in
the project: Siemens s upplied the RTLS technology and
equipped the trains with transponders and antennas, and
a local company installed the infrastructure in the depots.
In addition, Bouvet took the role of a software system
development partner of Sporveien, developing the tool
that handled the visualization and system integration.
In addition, RTLS specialists from Siemens provided live
support from Chemnitz (Germany).
© Siemens 2020
Everything at a glance: On large displays, employees can retrieve all the data for each vehicle
–including the current location in the sprawling depots. The users are impressed by the new
possibilities.
Security information
In order to protect plants, systems, machines
and networks against cyber threats, it is
necessary to implement – and continuously
maintain – a holistic, state-of-the-art industrial
security concept. Siemens’ products and
s olutions only form one element of such a
concept. For more information about
industrial security, please visit
https://www.siemens.com/industrialsecurity
Published by
Siemens AG
Digital Industries
Process Automation
Östliche Rheinbrückenstr. 50
76187 Karlsruhe, Germany
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Reference
DI PA-19/20-6
BR 0120 4 En
Produced in Germany
© Siemens 2020
Subject to changes and errors.
The information given in this document only
contains general descriptions and/or performance features which may not always specifically reflect those described, or which may
undergo modification in the course of
further development of the products. The
requested performance features are binding
only when they are expressly agreed upon in
the concluded contract.
All product designations may be trademarks
or product names of Siemens AG or supplier
companies whose use by third parties
for their own purposes could violate the
rights of the owners.
Stokkeland is impressed: “In my long
career, I have not experienced a project
that was as easily implemented. The
agile development process involved a
lot of stakeholders, and the end users
were some of the key group. That was
a great achievement for everyone involved!” Christian Grønnerød adds:
“We are really very satisfied with both
the technology and the management
of the implementation project on
Siemens side. This has become a great
benefit for us.”
Proven from the very first day
In practice, SIMATICRTLS has proven
itself from the very first day. On the
one hand, Sporveien employees were
impressed by the high locating precision. “We are accurate to about 20cm,”
reports RTLS product manager Grønnerød: “Of course that is not needed
for the trains, which are significantly
larger.” However, this accuracy of
SIMATICRTLS creates the prerequisite
for possibly adapting other workshop
processes to real-time locating – after
all, the installed gateway infrastructure
can l ocate much more than just a few
trains. The availability of the system
also far exceeds Sporveien's expectations, aided by the status monitoring
of the RTLS infrastructure integrated
into the visualization.
The users in the workshops, too, b ecame fast enthusiasts of the new
technology. “Such projects often
require a lot of coordination effort
and come with many change requests,”
states project manager Stokkeland.
“But in the case of RTLS, all colleagues
were immediately convinced of the
advantages.” The new systems ultimately enable employees to concentrate on their actual tasks without
wasting time on searches, phone
calls, or unnecessary detours. “The
acceptance is really enormous,” says
Stokkeland.
SIMATICRTLS – contributes to
improving public transport services
Punctual provision of trains, reduction
of running costs for service and maintenance, and increase of capacities in
depots: For Sporveien, SIMATICRTLS
is another important component for
the continuous improvement of public
transport services. So that the people
of Oslo have one more reason to
e xchange the car with the subway.
siemens.com/simatic-rtls
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