“The BaliseLifeCheck is fully operational. It is a very important tool in our Eurobalises maintenance process.”
Those are the the words of our client Régis Caron, SNCF ETCS Project Manager.
ERTMS Solutions has developed a tool, the BaliseLifeCheck (BLC), which automates balise maintenance. The 2 first customers, SNCF and Infrabel, are using the tool since late 2015, and, since then, Eurailscout, Mesea and CFL joined the BaliseLifeCheck users for balises maintenance in France.
The Balise Life Check’s unique strength is its ability to produce extremely detailed signal quality information when it passes over a Eurobalise. In the past, such signal quality information was only available when sending the Eurobalise to ERTMS laboratories.
Until now, without the Balise Life Check, the only information which could be obtained from the trains or from teams on the tracks was that the Eurobalise is ‘alive or dead’: no preventive maintenance was possible, with the operational consequences that this situation brought.
Now, with the Balise Life Check, each Eurobalise will automatically be tested by a moving laboratory onboard of a diagnostic train. This diagnostic train doesn’t even need to be fitted with an ERTMS OBU, avoiding costly ERTMS homologation process.
As a side benefit, the BaliseLifeCheck can also detect and quantify Big Metal Masses present on the tracks, enabling Infrastructure Managers to design their ERTMS lines accordingly.
When a Eurobalise has been pinpointed as a (potential) problem on the network, the Infrastructure Manager can send a team exactly where it’s needed, to preventively replace the Eurobalise, ensuring continuity of the rolling stock operations.
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