The independent certification and testing body Belgorail has issued certifications to Alstom for its latest onboard and trackside ETCS solutions, making Alstom the first company internationally to be fully certified in this arena.
The latest software developments guarantee interoperability with Baseline 3 Maintenance Release 2 for the entire railway system.
“We are proud to have yet again set a new standard in rail. We are on track to gradually replacing all the existing incompatible systems throughout Europe and to optimising and boosting the international freight and passenger transport.”
ETCS is a highly efficient train control system. It cuts down maintenance costs and delivers improvements in safety, reliability, punctuality and capacity. Consequently, ETCS is being used more and more outside of Europe, for example in countries like Australia, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
The first project that will see latest standards are the Monza-Chiasso line in Italy, which is also the first one to feature the technology on a conventional railway line. It will become operational in the summer of 2021. The next will be the very high-speed line between Paris and Lyon, with the system entering revenue service in 2024.
Alstom’s ETCS solution is called Atlas. The company has equipped 18,000km of tracks worldwide. Alstom is also involved in the first application of ETCS Level 3 in Germany.
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