PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe on track for 5G-based railway comms

With the understanding that transporting hundreds of thousands of passengers and tons of freight every day using rail lines that crisscross countries and continents requires a management system that cannot be allowed to fail, Polish national railway company PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe has signed a letter of intent with Ericsson to test a Future Railway Mobile Communications System (FRMCS).

Formed more than 20 years ago, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe’s range of activity includes ranging from maintenance of the railway lines, implementation of the timetable, provision of railway infrastructure, finance and investment and development projects. In 2023, 1,831,938 passenger trains and 409, 501 freight trains travelled their routes on the Polish railway tracks.

The company notes that improvement of the condition of the railway network and significant improvement of the condition of engineering structures has translated into shorter journeys, higher train speeds, better accessibility to the railways, new and rebuilt stations and stops, with greater possibilities of cargo transport. It also believes that the level of safety has also increased significantly thanks to new equipment, systems and work organisation.

Furthering the systems improvement, the project with Ericsson with will run for two years on a test track connected to one of Europe’s largest railways. It will see the old GSM-R system replaced with 5G technology with the new FRMCS standard expected to be fully developed in 2027, with the first commercial implementations starting in 2028.

It is designed to allow real-time data exchange between trains, crucial for safe and efficient railway operations. PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe said that the new system has been engineered to offer robustness, reliability and far greater data transfer speed and capacity than the legacy GSM-R.

As part of the deployment, Ericsson said that it will deliver a mission-critical network solution aimed at demonstrating the benefits of 5G for railway operations in general and particularly to prepare the technological migration of railways in Poland.

These solutions include the Ericsson Radio System for the dedicated FRMCS band n101 (1900MHz) together with an enclosure and power solution, as well as the Local Packet Gateway for integration with Orange Poland’s and T-Mobile Poland’s 5G standalone network.

The solutions will be installed at the Railway Institute’s facilities in Żmigród, near Wrocław in Western Poland. Ericsson will also provide local expert guidance based at R&D centers in Łódź and Kraków. These teams will be responsible for the architecture, configuration and optimisation of the delivered solutions.

Commenting on the deployment, Piotr Kubicki, member of the management board and director for digital transformation at PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe, said: “FRMCS is becoming the engine behind the digitalisation of the entire rail component in Europe. The Future Railway Mobile Communication System and its research at the training ground begin a new standard of communication.”

The head of Ericsson Poland, Martin Mellor, added: “We are delighted to sign this letter of intent with PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. FRMCS can facilitate significant benefits for rail travel – from helping to deliver 5G connectivity to enabling video analytics, safety features and automation.

“The learnings taken from this trial will not only benefit the strategic migration of Poland’s railways away from GSM-R, it will also contribute to the standardisation of FRMCS in the near future.”