On September 23, Hong Kong Section of Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway, which attracted a lot of attention, was commissioned. Trains departing from West Kowloon Terminus in Hong Kong and traveling at a speed of 250km/h can arrive at Futian Station in just 14 minutes, where passengers can transfer to high-speed railways in mainland extending in all directions, thus linking Hong Kong with more than 40 mainland cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Kunming, Wuhan, Changsha and Guiyang.

Figure1: West Kowloon Terminus

There are two reasons why Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway attracted so much attention. One is that it provided a new border-crossing transport mode that aids in creating "one-hour commute circle" in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and advancing business and cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and mainland cities via faster and easier transport. The other is that the signaling system escorting this line made many technical breakthroughs, elevating Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway to an unprecedented level in terms of the integrity of safety system and setting a good example in the industry.

Figure 2: Board Chairman of Mass Transit Railway in West Kowloon Terminus Control Room

The signaling system of Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway reportedly reached the highest safety level of SIL4 for its onboard system and train control system and first introduced SIL2 centralized traffic control system, i.e. CASCO’s FZk-CTC system. It passed third-party safety assessment in 2017 and received SIL2 safety certificate, becoming the first SIL2 centralized traffic control system in China.

Figure 3: Hong Kong Dispatching Center of Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway

With this system, station and yard information at West Kowloon and Futian can be monitored in real time, while train numbers can be tracked automatically, thus realizing efficient management of operation plan and dispatching. In addition to these traditional dispatching functions, CASCO’s FZk-CTC system can communicate in real time with train control system, i.e send train operation status to the train control system in emergency and send "emergency stop" command to the train, which is also the first time in the industry.

Figure 4: CTC center

Before serving Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway, CASCO’s FZk-CTC system has been successfully applied to many main railway lines in China, including Beijing-Shanghai Express Railway, Xi'an-Chengdu High-Speed Railway, Hefei-Fuzhou High-Speed Railway, Guiyang-Guangzhou High-Speed Railway, Lanzhou-Wulumuqi High-speed Railway, Chongqing-Lanzhou High-Speed Railway, Qinghai-Tibet Railway, Yunnan-Guilin Railway, Wuhan-Guangzhou Passenger Dedicated Line, Changsha-Kunming Passenger Dedicated Line. As one of the signaling suppliers for Hong Kong Section of Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway, CASCO fully upgraded the conventional CTC system to further enhance safety architecture on the basis of the traditional architecture and improve the reliability and availability of the whole system. In the future, this upgraded system will be applied to more national and corporate railways to meet the demands of different customers and better safeguard public travel.

Figure 5: Server room of dipatching center

Besides the CTC system, CASCO was also responsible for the design, supply, installation and commissioning of computer-based interlocking (CBI) and centralized signaling monitoirng (CSM) systems for Guangzhou-Hong Kong High-speed Railway.