End-to-End Multipath Technology: Enhancing Availability and Reliability in Next-Generation Packet-Switched Train Signaling Systems

The migration of railway signaling systems based on circuit switching toward Internet protocol (IP) is on the way. Consequently, new strategies to promote reliability in packet-?switching networks must be studied. In this article, we propose the use of multipath technology to enhance the availability and reliability of these communications. To our knowledge, this is the first time that multipath strategies are customized for the railway train-control domain. We present the basic requirements that a multipath protocol must fulfill to increase the reliability and evaluate different related multipath proposals and provide our own customized protocol, the reliable multipath transmission control protocol (RMPTCP). Finally, we demonstrate the availability improvement that our proposed multipath strategy introduces.