High-Speed Railway Communications: From GSM-R to LTE-R

High-speed railways (HSRs) improve the quality of rail services, yield greater customer satisfaction, and help to create socioeconomically balanced societies [1]. This highly efficient transport mode creates significant challenges in terms of investment, technology, industry, and environment. To handle increasing traffic, ensure passenger safety, and provide real-time multimedia information, a new communication system for HSR is required. In the last decade, public networks have been evolving from voice-centric second-generation systems, e.g., Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) with limited capabilities, to fourth-generation (4G) broad-band systems that offer higher data rates, e.g., long-term evolution (LTE). It is thus relevant for HSR to replace the current GSM-railway (GSM-R) technology with the next-generation railway-dedicated communication system providing improved capacity and capability.