On June 28th, the 2024 Digital Urban Rail Transit Innovation Forum was held grandly at Shanghai Science Hall. During the event, CASCO unveiled its groundbreaking Xihe Digital Urban Rail Transit Solution. This solution focuses on enhancing operational safety and resilience, and builds two major platforms— Intelligent Operation Control Platform and Intelligent Operation & Maintenance Platform based on the independently developed open digital foundation for rail transit and scalable credit control model. It integrates a series of intelligent application products to facilitate the digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading of the industry.

Inspired by the Chinese mythological figure Xihe, the mother of the sun who governed the sun and the passage of time, Xihe embodies CASCO's vision for the future development of digital urban rail transit, aiming to create a digitally intelligent and harmonious urban rail transit through safe and efficient professional algorithms and resilient, inclusive open services.

Intelligent "Platform + Product": Flexible and Configurable

The Xihe Digital Urban Rail Transit Solution represents an iterative upgrade of CASCO's "Fully Automatic Operation System 2.0 for Smart Metro". Based on the open digital foundation for rail transit, it establishes two core platforms: Intelligent Operation Control and Intelligent Operation & Maintenance, forming a "Smart Brain" and "Health Manager" for safeguarding train operations. Through the deep integration of advanced technologies such as multi-source ubiquitous sensing, trustworthy artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things, it helps enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Wang Xiaoyong, General Manager of CASCO's Urban Rail Transit Product Center, unveiled Xihe

Intelligent Operation Control is an operation control and management platform designed for operation dispatchers, station staff, drivers, maintenance personnel, etc. It centers on train operation command, integrates multiple disciplines into one system, and facilitates intelligent, collaborative operations.

Intelligent Operation & Maintenance targets the maintenance scenarios of rail transit. It integrates IoT, PHM for health prediction, AI and other technologies to create a comprehensive and integrated rail transit operation and maintenance platform enabling health prediction, fault diagnosis, production control, emergency response, and maintenance decision-making of multi-system equipment.

Hu Enhua, General Manager of CASCO's Digital Intelligence Product Center, introduced the two platforms

Based on these two platforms, CASCO has successfully developed a series of star products, including intelligent train control, intelligent dispatching, intelligent station, intelligent depot, as well as intelligent terminals such as integrated platform screen door and the Train Autonomous Perception System (TAPS).

From a single product to a comprehensive service solution, Xihe integrates CASCO's digital and intelligent innovative applications in urban rail transit, enabling flexible configuration of solutions according to the needs of various application scenarios, and even calmly addressing some of the most challenging industry problems.

For instance, Xihe can significantly enhance the train's holographic environmental perception under complex operating conditions. Leveraging LiDAR and machine vision, it achieves obstacle recognition and braking protection, thus safeguarding train operation.

In harsh weather conditions like rain and snow, Xihe can comprehensively and accurately identify potential slipping areas on the line with advanced intelligent algorithms through real-time evaluation of the adhesion of wheels. By adopting adaptive control strategies, it reduces the probability of train slipping, ensuring safe and reliable operation.

In the event of signaling system failures, Xihe can utilize ubiquitous sensing technology and autonomous safety protection system, to ensure that trains can continue operating in fully automatic mode to the platform, and avoid train stop on the track for long, thus ensuring safe boarding and alighting for passengers, and enhancing operation resilience.

The Xihe Digital Urban Rail Transit Solution provides passengers with exceptional travel services through optimal scheduling and control while maintaining the optimal operating state at lower maintenance costs. Under constant resource conditions, Xihe can achieve approximately a 30% increase in transport capacity, saving about 30% of fault and emergency response time. It shifts from "people seeking data" to "data seeking people," optimizes human-machine interaction, and integrates job positions and services more closely, thus significantly reducing labor and management costs while offering passengers more efficient, safer, and more reliable travel services.

Through multi-disciplinary integration and cross-position collaboration, Xihe Digital Urban Rail Transit Solution achieves innovation and optimization of train operation and maintenance, featuring innovation, high technology, high safety, high efficiency, and sustainability, making it a representative of new productivity in the urban rail signaling field.

Self-developed Digital Foundation Empowering Industry Applications

CASCO has customized an open digital foundation for Xihe, capable of multi-disciplinary data access and governance across "human, machine, material, method, and environment". It provides real-time and reliable governance of data of human error, system operation, and equipment status, ensuring data timeliness, integrity, and safety, thus supporting intelligent operation.

Furthermore, CASCO also released the SKY large model at the forum, which can be used for professional knowledge sharing and operational log analysis in urban rail transit, further expanding the application of AI in rail transit.

Creating an Industry Community to Foster Collaborative Innovation

Building digital urban rail transit is a protracted battle requiring the wisdom and strength of the entire industry. Taking advantage of this forum, the country's first "Digital Urban Rail Transit Innovation Community" was founded, bringing together over 30 member units from upstream and downstream of the urban rail transit industry chain, covering industry, academia, research, and application. It aims to actively integrate the advantages of various resources to jointly explore high-quality and sustainable development for digital urban rail transit.

Launch Ceremony of the "Digital Urban Rail Transit Innovation Community"

Nurturing the sun with Xihe, we march towards the light. CASCO hopes to drive urban rail transit towards safer, more efficient, greener, smarter, and more economical development through continuous innovation, together with industry peers, to jointly create infinite possibilities for the future of the industry.