Performance Analysis of WAVE Communication for Emergency Broadcasting in Metro Environments

Recently, subway trains running underground have become an issue of passengers inconvenience and safety due to the failure of announcements in emergencies such as breakdown, train accidents and power outage in tunnels. Thus, there is a need to develop an emergency broadcasting system that can provide announcements to all passenger cars in any emergency on the railway route. WAVE communication technology based on IEEE 802.11p standard using 5.9GHz dedicated frequency band enables direct communication between terminals more than 200m without additional relay infrastructure. Especially, it is considered to be a suitable communication technology for the emergency broadcasting system of the urban subway, showing robust communication performance even in the tunnel areal [1]. In this paper, the applicability of various wireless communication technologies for the emergency broadcasting system through the measurement campaign was examined in Seoul metropolitan subway. The WAVE is a communication technology that can use 5.9GHz dedicated frequency band without charge and it is possible to communicate between terminals without the help of additional relay infrastructure. Especially, it confirms robust communication performance in a tunnel which is an operating environment of urban subway, and therefore, it is considered to be suitable as a communication method of a radio-connected emergency broadcasting system for an urban subway. It is also expected that it will be possible to develop the emergency broadcasting system capable of safe evacuation and emergency guidance to passengers using urban subway in any emergencies.