Interoperable system to tackle rail security in Europe

Ensuring railway security involves many different tasks and components. With this in mind, the EU-funded PROTECTRAIL (Railway-industry partnership for integrated security of rail transport) project dealt with railway security from the perspective of a layered integrated system. It sought to divide the overall mission of security into smaller sub-tasks.

Work within the project involved designing a system that interfaces seamlessly between security sub-missions, a set of realistic issues regarding protection needs and requirements in rail transport systems.

To achieve its aims, PROTECTRAIL provided tools and strategies for evaluating the security potential of a given security sub-mission in terms of performance, reliability, speed and costs. It outlined user requirements and defined the main mechanisms of the required system architecture.

Demonstrations were carried out in France, Italy and Poland that focused on architecture, network communications, video management and security technology.

All these achievements led to the design of an integrated system that stands to radically improve the security of rail transportation. It enables operators and infrastructure managers to constantly adapt their security systems to shifting security requirements with minimal engineering costs. The system consists of a set of rules and standards that facilitate the integration and communication between different security technologies.

Political, economic and sociocultural characteristics were considered in laying down future design for security strategies. A long-term vision spanning the next two decades was also defined for the system.

In addition to supporting performance, reliability, speed and cost efficiency, the new system will help product and service developers to improve and validate related technologies. This will bring an important boost to European industry and support governments in implementing security policies. Most importantly, it will make Europe's rail system safer for travellers from every perspective.