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R&D Thermes

Efforts in Maintenance Work Safety Safety Research Laboratory

Establishing a new system for track closure
Establishing a new system for track closure overview
Establishing a new system for track closure overview
"Track closure" is a method of ensuring safety by displaying stop signals for the work location and not allowing trains to enter that section. Previously, request procedures and confirmation were mainly by telephone.
We have developed "Track closureprocedure support system" to prevent human error when maintenance work is going on. Also, we have added a maintenance car routing function where the on-site supervisor also can set and restore the route when the maintenance car is in operation.
The following is an outline of the functions:
(1) Display the train schedule on a maintenance office terminal, and register the work plan.
(2) Register maintenance car route from on-screen route map when maintenance care operation is underway.
(3) Understand train operation status at the worksite through mobile terminals.
(4) Request permission to start work and report completion from the worksite by mobile terminal, and display the stop signal via dispatcher.
(5) Set and restore maintenance car route from the worksite through mobile terminal operations.

Currently, this system is in use by the Nagano Branch for the Chuo East and Shinonoi lines.

Maintenance work safety system for Shinkansen maintenance cars
Maintenance work safety system for Shinkansen maintenance cars
Many maintenance cars are used for Shinkansen maintenance work. Those include large-sized rail grinding machines and confirmation cars that can run at up to 90 km/h. If a maintenance car should happen to cause a collision or derailment accident, a large amount of time would be needed for recovery. However, maintenance car operation is reliant on human attention; and failure in confirmation could lead to collisions between maintenance cars, splitting of points, maintenance car derailment, intrusion into sections not set as routes, and other accidents.
The maintenance work safety system for Shinkansen maintenance cars is a system that prevents splitting of points, intrusion into sections not set as routes, and collisions between maintenance cars. The system performs those functions by acquiring maintenance car locations from speed sensors installed onboard and route information from COSMOS HT. Hazards are detected from distance between the maintenance car to the move limit or other maintenance cars, direction, and relative speed; and alarms and brake signals are output as necessary to prevent accidents.
As a man-machine interface functional improvement, the system also has a function for displaying in on a monitor real-time information such as the track layout in the yard, locations of maintenance cars, and route information.
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