Smart safety solutions provider HIMA Paul Hildebrandt will be presenting its safety technology for the rail industry under the slogan “SIL 4 Safety Controller: Flexible, Proven. Off-the-Shelf” at the Trako International Railway Fair, being held in Gdansk, Poland on 24-27 September 2019.
COTS controllers with CENELEC SIL 4 certification will form the central focus of HIMA’s display on Stand 26-2 in Hall D. These safety systems, which have been installed in countless rail projects around the world, have open architecture that allows operators, system integrators and rolling stock manufacturers to benefit from a high level of flexibility in terms of choice of supplier, long-term availability of components and maximum safety.
Sedat Sezgün, group vice president for rail at HIMA, explained: “COTS is already widely used as a forward-looking and competitive solution in European rail networks. The SIL4 certification, in accordance with CENELEC, offers many advantages in terms of standardization and flexibility as well as great cost reduction potential.
“We are looking back at many successful rail projects operating COTS technology in middle and eastern Europe, for example in Serbia, Russia, Poland, and Hungary.”
As an example, the Signalling & Control company from Serbia has used COTS components from HIMA to create its own electronic interlocking solution. This has proven effective in multiple projects for Železnice Srbije (Serbian Railways), where scalability and pre-certification were decisive.
Certified COTS products provide a cost-effective and time-saving solution, which is especially important for smaller companies.
As another example, in Russia, the rail company AT TRANS created an interlocking solution based on HIMA’s HIMatrix controllers that not only maximises safety, but also optimises train scheduling. HIMA’s technology is directly linked to axle counters, so AT TRANS can track the location of trains in real time while the controllers convey valuable information to the company’s logistics management software, facilitating improved train planning.
COTS: Superior safety and profitability for rail sector
HIMA has been one of the first manufacturers to offer SIL4-standard controllers compliant with CENELEC. Today, they are used by 50 partners in over 30 countries. The controllers are part of the ‘Smart Safety Platform’ which is the first comprehensive solution in the world to combine safety and security. The hardware and software components in the platform are uniformly tailored to each other so HIMA’s COTS controllers make it possible to realize safety solutions for signals, level crossings and rolling stock cost-effectively, easily and quickly.
Another benefit of the platform is the extremely high level of security – a crucial factor at a time when the digitization of the rail industry is gaining pace around the world.
Irrespective of whether a controller is central or decentralized, redundant or not, COTS components from HIMA guarantee reliable and continuous operation for safety-critical railway applications such as electronic signalling technology, level crossings, sensor-monitored door opening systems, electronically controlled slide and wheel slip protection, safety controllers, remote control, safe train movement and much more.
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