Development of New Track Circuits for Energy Conservation and Signal Control Innovation

The authors develop a solitary wave track circuit (SW-TC) that discretely transmits track circuit currents in alternating current track circuits. As the SW-TC transmits discretely, the amount of power transmitted to the track circuit can be reduced, thereby saving energy. Furthermore, the information quantity that can be transmitted is increased by discretely transmitting the wave intervals as information. This can be utilized to control the signal of many indications, without acquiring information from the adjacent track circuit. The function equivalent to today's digital automatic train control (D-ATC) can be realized by acquiring the forward train position and combining it with the information stored on the onboard equipment. In this paper, we explain the concept of a SW-TC and introduce signal control and train protection control functions realized by a SW-TC. In addition, the energy-saving effect of the SW-TC is compared with that of an existing commercial frequency track circuit and D-ATC, and the results are presented.