Techno-economical inspection of high-speed Internet connection for trains

Abstract

Some attractive service scenarios for Railways’ Intelligent Transport Systems (RITS) in three different user segments, that is, passengers, freight companies and train operator's in-house customers, are presented. The case study covers the analysis of customer needs and techno-economic evaluations. The analysis indicates that Flash-OFDM technology provides promising pre-stage solution for the train connections in Finland. Also, the WiMAX-based high-speed Internet access for passengers may be profitable in the most heavily operated railway leg in Finland. The sensitivity analysis shows that the most crucial parameters for the case are ‘User Share’, ‘Average Revenue per User’ and ‘WiMAX Cell Size’. The analysis highlights the large economical potential for RITS services. It is possible, and also recommendable, to implement all the services for different user groups with the same hardware equipment. By this way, investment costs can be reduced noticeably. The in-house customers provide the most attractive service segment in the sense of net present value and reliability, by reducing operating costs and carriage investments while improving the management of operations in general.