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Building and improving the Shinkansen involves far more than developing cars that support high-speed service. It extends to operation control and maintenance to assure safety, measures to reduce environmental impact, and system technologies drawn from a wide range of fields. This remarkable railroad—on which trains run at up to 300 km/h, are tightly scheduled, and are nearly always on time—has captured peoples' imaginations around the world.
Shinkansen lines do not rely on signal lights. The secret is in the driver's compartment. At speeds over 200 km/h, it is almost impossible to check a signal light. So instead of signals, indicators were placed inside the driver's compartment together with a system that both controls those indicators and automatically applies the brakes when a train needs to be slowed.
This system, the Automatic Train Control (ATC), raises the reliability of the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen lines have never experienced a collision—a feat that can be attributed to the success of this system. It displays the speed the train should be going, and if that speed is exceeded, sounds a warning in the driver's compartment while automatically applying the brakes to adjust the speed to match the displayed figure. The system automatically maintains a fixed distance between trains through calculations made from an electrical signal current conducted through the rails.
Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) is a computer system which constantly monitors train locations and route conditions, and efficiently controls Shinkansen traffic from the central control room. An enormous display board which covers an entire wall of the central control room became a symbol of the Computer-aided Traffic Control (COMTRAC) system that was introduced in 1972.
In 1995, the current system, called Computerized Safety, Maintenance, and Operation Systems of Shinkansen (COSMOS), was introduced. COSMOS integrates control of the power distribution systems, including substations; upkeep of equipment such as tracks and electrical systems; car management; general maintenance; and management of work inside Shinkansen stockyards. All these systems were originally developed and implemented separately, but COSMOS brings them together by connecting the central control room with computers located at train stations, yards, and other sites through a dedicated high-speed data network. The old display board, which was so large that some said that they needed a pair of binoculars just to view all the details, has now disappeared from the wall it occupied, and all controls and displays are shown on computer monitors. |
