Chairman :

• François DAVENNE, Deputy Director General, UIC

Speaker :

• Matthias RUETE, European ERTMS Coordinator, European Commission
• Luis ROMERO, General Director, ETSI
• Josef DOPPELBAUER, General Manager, ERA
• Giorgio TRAVAINI, Head of Research & Innovation, Shift2Rail

Several major representatives from the Transport, Rail and Telecommunication sectors will provide their vision and their perspectives regarding the railway telecom evolution.

Chairman:

• Chiel SPAANS, ERTMS Officer, ERA

Speakers:

• Boris GOMBAC, OFG Chairman, UIC - EIRENE Status
• Fred COURSANT, NMG Chairman, UIC - GSM-R European Interconnection
• Peter PUŠNIK, Head of telecommunication department, SZ- GSM-R Status and Plans
• Bertrand TAQUIN, GSM-R Manager, SNCF - GSM-R Status & Plans

Since the late 90’s where GSM-R started being implemented in parallel of ERTMS, its development has been impressive in Europe as well as all over the world. This standard developed by the railways through UIC has become the worldwide reference of railway mobile telecommunications. Essential element to support railway applications such as voice operational communications (REC, LDA, Functional Addressing, …) and signalling (ETCS), GSM-R has started to evolve from circuit-switch (TDM) to packet-switch (IP) with the recent introduction of GPRS, and will be maintained by UIC together with the railway community and the railway telecom industry for the next decade at least, in order to preserve the investment and to have sufficient time for the introduction of the next railway mobile standard.

Chairman:

• Alex RAVIART, Head of ICT Networks, Infrabel

Speakers:

• Jason TAYLOR, Head of Customer Development, NR – NR Digitalisation Initiatives
• Manuel DIETRICH, Head of Telecoms, SBB - SmartRail 4.0
• Marine MIZRAHI, Director IoTs, SNCF - IoTs Use Cases
• Baseliyos JACOB, Shift2Rail IP5 Leader, DB Cargo - ATO & OCORA Projects
• Marc ANTONI, UIC - Cybersecurity

If FRMCS was initially only considered as the necessary successor of GSM-R, it evolved as the enabler for the increasing various topics driving railway towards digitalization, such as the game changers envisaged by European Transport Authorities (ETCS Level 3 and ATO, for instance), and also other key elements of the railway domain (virtual coupling, smart maintenance, monitoring of trackside components, TCMS, or new applications that are in various development stages today). The scope of FRMCS has then to encompass much more than the pure replacement of the current GSM-R system.

Chairman:

• Achim VRIELINK, Head of GSM-R Network, DB

Speakers:

• Dan MANDOC, FRMCS Leader, UIC - FRMCS Global Projects & Plans
• Michael MIKULANDRA, UNITEL Chairman - Suppliers Vision
• Thomas CHÂTELET, ERTMS Officer, ERA - ERTMS Game Changers
• Ulrich GEIER, S2R IP2 - X2Rail Status & Plans

FRMCS is now a strategic program led by UIC on behalf of Infrastructure Managers and Railway Undertakings. The purpose of the program comprises diverse but focused activities which are developed in partnership with the key players of the railway eco-system, namely the Telecom Industry, the European Authorities and Stakeholders, the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking and many others. Synergy, alignment of timing and convergence to common objectives are an absolute prerequisite for the success of FRMCS definition, standardization, delivery and migration from GSM-R.

Chairman:

• Robert SARFATI, ETSI TC-RT Chairman, UIC

Speakers:

• Erik VAN BOMMEL, FWG Chairman, UIC - FRMCS URS & FRS
• Ingo WENDLER, FRMCS ATWG, UIC - FRMCS Architecture & SRS
• Guillaume GACH, 3GPP Task Force, UIC - FRMCS 3GPP & ETSI TC-RT
• Dirk SCHATTSCHNEIDER, UGFA Chairman, UIC - FRMCS Spectrum
• Didier CHAUVEAU, Deputy Director, ANFR - FRMCS Frequency Model

FRMCS is well advanced on its specification roadmap, with the publication of UIC User Requirements Specification and UIC Use Cases Catalogue. These requirements and use cases are feeding a specific telecom standardization stream in 3GPP, through the essential work of ETSI, so that the next railway radio standard will be genuinely embedded in the future worldwide radio standards such as 5G. Another essential element is the allocation of frequencies to FRMCS, worked out in various telecom-oriented organizations such as CEPT and ECC dedicated groups. This is the opportunity to have a deep dive in this significant work and achievements, together with the architects of this complex process, and also to understand more precisely the global plan that will permit to deliver the FRMCS standard to the entire railway community.

Chairman:

• Eric GIRAUD-DESJUZEUR, Head of GSM-R Network, SNCF

Speakers:

• Jochen NOWOTNY, Technology Vice-President, KCC - Towards FRMCS without disruption
• Hendrik HOLZ, Vice Director GSM-R Sales, Funkwerk - The migration strategy for terminals
• Michael KLOECKER, Head of Railway Solution Management, Nokia - Benefits of 5G for evolution

The adhesion of railway telecom industry to the FRMCS project is an absolute need, not only because there will be a need for adequate and standardized products to be ready for the time of early deployments, but also because the continuous contribution of industrial leaders is required during all the phases of definition, specification and standardization of FRMCS. Some of the recognized leaders of railway telecom industry will provide therefore their vision and their plans for FRMCS development, deployment and future usage.

Chairman:

• Carlo DE GRANDIS, Policy Officer Rail Digitalisation, European Commission - Main Challenges in the migration from GSM-R to FRMCS

Speakers:

• Dan MANDOC, FRMCS Leader, UIC - FRMCS Global Projects & Plans
• Christian NÄNNI, TOBA Chairman, UIC - Telecom On-Board Architecture
• Alex RAVIART, Head of ICT Networks, Infrabel
• Patrick MARSCH, Senior Project Manager, Digital Rail, DB – FRMCS Challenges
• Martin TARANETZ, Mobile Communication Strategy Leader, ÖBB - FRMCS Migration Plans

Defining, specifying and standardizing FRMCS is a must, but it is not sufficient. The migration from GSM-R will be quite complex, for at least two reasons: first, this will take time at each country level and consequently railways will live for a certain number of years with hybrid networks, and second, the expectation will be to reach with FRMCS the same impressive quality level obtained with GSM-R. The migration of railway fleets is also a technical and economical major concern for all Railway Undertakings. The specific UIC program for FRMCS migration will be consequently detailed, including the conception of a new telecom on-board architecture, and some preliminary orientations regarding FRMCS operational migrations will be presented.

Keynote:
Keir FITCH, Vice-President Transport, European Commission

Conclusions:
Jean-Michel EVANGHELOU, Head of Telecom & Signalling, UIC

Closing:
Jean-Pierre LOUBINOUX, Director General, UIC

Conclusions & Next Steps

Tombola Awards