REPORT



BCA: THE MOST INNOVATORY DRIVING SYSTEM INTO THE MOST USED LINE

SARA SANTAMARIA ARRIBAS


Renfe Spanish company installed at the end of the last year a new automatic transportation system into the trains belonging to the line which joins Mostoles with Fuenlabrada, it cost 2,000 millions of pesetas. It is called Automatic Control Locking (BCA), which allows to increase the passing frequency of the trains, to reduce the waiting times at the stations and to increase, above all, the number of seats available. All of this has meant an increase of the quality service and of the circulation reliability, because of it is one of the most modern circulation systems of railway signing in the world.



Around 300,000 travellers always use the Nearness line C-3 in Madrid.


This system has been put in service into the Nearness line C-5 of the Spanish capital, which joins Mostoles-El Soto stations with Atocha and Fuenlabrada stations. On this line there are five important interchangers with underground service at Atocha, Laguna, Aluche and Mendez Alvaro stations, because of it is the most used line in Spain and one of the most important railway lines in Europe. Into that Nearness line, the trains carry the travellers from the cities at the outskirts to the capital centre and there, the underground or the bus carry them to their job or university.

This line C-5 is daily used by 289,800 travellers, because Mostoles every day counts with 50,272 passangers, while Mendez Alvaro daily is crossed by 58,111 passangers and Embajadores is crossed by 42,889 travellers. The passangers who every day use Alcorcon station are around 25,465 people, Leganes station are 32,996 passangers and Atocha is used by 106,722 travellers who go to some station of this busy line.


The BCA gets through a total fifting of the speed and braking into the trains.


The Automatic Control Locking has just been installed into the line and into the transportation cabins of the 75 trains belonging to the Nearness line Mostoles-Atocha-Fuenlabrada. It is a complex computer system which is in constant communication between the equipments installed into the lines and the transportation cabins. This allows to display into the cabin all the circulation datails and, futhermore, it can be analysed the messages and fitted the gear to the circulation conditions. Indeed, the equipment works, in fact, as a security element more, very important in the railway transports with high passing frequency.

The new system has meant an investment of more than 2,000 millions of pesetas, coming from the Ministry of Public Works. This system allows to circulate trains each 3.5 minutes (nowadays they pass each four minutes). With the increase of frequencies, the offer during the rush hours increases a 15% in relation to the current offer. In the near future, it is going to obtain the passing of the trains each three minutes and the offer is going to increase to the 20 trains in each way, that it was an increase of the number of seats in a 33% during the rush hours.


The complexity of the system has required skilled training for 100 engine drivers who work into this line.


With the increase of frequencies that make possible the BAC system, it is obtained an offer increase. To be exact, since the 6 hours 57 minutes to the 8 hours 15 minutes, the offer of seats increases in 2,856. This involves more confortable than before for the passangers, because they have more space in the Nearness trains belonging to that line. This increase of frequencies means a reduction of the waiting time at the stations.

That system includes some improvements as the BAC system which obtains a total fifting of the braking and speed into the trains, an exact regulation of frequencies and of the passing cadence of theirselves and more preciseness in their stationing, which it only has a margin of error around 25 centimetres, when the train with these characteristics, in double composition, has a length of 150 metres. We must add that the Nearness trains can reach a speed of 100 kilometres per hour on this line.

The complex system is a newness in the urban transport, and it has involved an enormous learning effort for the 100 engine drivers who work at this Nearness line.
Go back to the Reports main page

Go back to the STOL main page