Reasoning Functional Requirements for Virtually Coupled Train Sets: Communication

Virtually coupled train sets (VCTS), the equivalent of road vehicle platooning for railways, have attracted the attention of industry in the past few years due to their potential to increase the line capacity without massive investments in the infrastructure. The goal of this article is to reason out functional communication requirements for VCTS using a bottom-up approach and introduce challenges of the railway domain to readers of the communication community. Three different VCTS configurations in terms of sensor and communication concepts are presented, and quantitative examples of communication requirements are given for different application scenarios. To conclude, the ability of some technology candidates to fit these requirements is analyzed and compared in relation to each application scenario.