British Rail Moving Forward with Sat-Nav/GPS

de1orean writes "The BBC is reporting that after a successful limited trial using GPS satellite navigation to improve train safety and efficiency, British Rail is committed to instituting sat-nav throughout the system. It may be in operation as early as 2008."

Comments

Re:Low tech incompetence

[ozmanjusri]

Why do fools insist on going to high tech solutions when they can't even get the low tech stuff right?

Because they can't even get the low tech stuff right. The key failure points on rail systems are the switches & signals that control which section of rail the train is on, and the locomotives themselves which can stop, speed up or slow down.

Knowing precisely where a loco is on the track is the single most important aspect of rail safety, so that train control can switch a train onto another section of track, or into a siding to avoid collision, or can warn the driver to speed up or slow down to achieve the same result. In non-gps systems is this is done with trackside transponders and dead reckoning. A modern positive train separation (PTS) system based on GPS is simpler and more reliable than the transponders it replaces, and allows for more sophisticated controls such as automatic speed limiting.

It's also far from uncommon. Similar systems have been available for years.