Basic data

Waiting room of Yaroslavskij Railway Station

Tasks

• Developing an information system for passengers displaying train arrivals and departures
• Creating a mechanism of dynamic information update
• Development of specific software
• Delivery, mounting and configuring of equipment at Yaro-slavsij Railroad Station

Hardship

Information display system at railway station should be highly reliable since it is expected to work continuously, without errors or fails which may cause inconvenience for passengers and lead to disorganization of traffic flow and severe material losses not only for passengers but also for the carrier.

Long distance video signal transmission due to large premises of Yaroslavskij Railway Station.

Strong reliability requirements to equipment being installed, which is to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Project description

A specific software-hardware complex has been developed to solve the problem.

Liquid-crystalline data (LCD) displays and plasma display panels (PDP) have been used to represent information about train arrivals and departures.

Information is stored in DBMS MySQL database.

The complex provides separate information output for train arrivals and departures and dynamic informa-tion update. Information should be transmitted to LCD display as monochrome bitmap image.

Color graphic timetable information and commer-cials are displayed on PDPs.

Operator's computer is a common entry level work-station. All the necessary information base modifica-tions can be made by operator from this computer.

Dynamic bitmap image generation and information panels control system as well as color image genera-tion and PDP control system have been developed on the Palantir controllers basis.

A sorting mechanism which allows allocating records in ascending order of departure time starting from the current moment is used for information output. The peculiarity of this algorithm is that information on delayed trains remained on the screen in the lower part of data display.

Panels are connected to the controller through RS-232 interface.

Displayed information update rate can be set frorr operator's computer.

Video information is transmitted to PDP from Kramer VP-724 sealer, which enables to connect infor-mation from different sources to panel video input as well as represent information from two sources at the same time in PIP mode.

All information panels have time displaying feature. An original mechanism based on connection to exec time server is used for clock synchronization.

Different complex parts interact via local networ-using TCP/IP protocols family. This enables to control the system from any point of railway station as well as to locate the main complex in a single location and information panels all over the railway station. For this purpose every information panel location was connected via shielded twisted pair and supplied by 220 Volt, 50 Hertz voltage. Supply voltage and signal twisted pair output was organized as compact access hole built into a wall. Such an access hole included 220 volt power outlets and RJ-45 network outlets.

Special Kramer transmitters have been used for long distance video transmission via twisted pair cable.

Twist

Major part of information base is renewed once с year. Changes are made for information concerning season schedule and long distance trains delays. Advertisement information is stored on DVDs or CDs as DVD+ or DivX video files. Due to Kramer VP-724 sealer PDPs can work in the following modes:

• Information on arrivals
• Information on departures
• Commercials
• Arrivals + departures + commercials.

Future trends

It is planned to implement the complex at other Moscow Railway Stations as results of its exploitation at Yaroslavskij Railway Station are good.

The comments about this project of our Company's expert

Pavel Kudelin

"Traffic flows of railroad stations of one of the biggest world cities- Moscow — are huge, that's why providing reliable information and latest update for passenger is crucial for uninterrupted and efficient functioning of railroad stations. Old, mechanic and other information representation devices are not able to solve the problem as contemporary computers and information display devices. Uninterrupted, round-the-clock system operation is possible due to the use of Kramer devices.