Assured Voice Communications for Railway Operations

Abstract

Railway communication networks must provide highly reliable, robust, and predictable services for both railway operations and passengers. Mission critical voice applications used for ground-to-ground communications, shunting communications and banking communications demand assured communication links. Current fifth generation (5G) mobile networks can provide the required quality of service. In this paper, a new assured voice communication service is proposed that may be used by different railway applications. The service enables communication link supervision and provides indications to all users involved in the call about the connectivity quality. The service is described by typical use cases and the supported application programming interfaces. Models representing the assured voice communication status are developed, formally described, and verified. Service implementation aspects are discussed.