◆Long Term Evolution in High Speed Railway

Environments: Feasibility and Challenges

Jaime Calle-Sánchez, Mariano Molina-García, José I. Alonso,
and Alfonso Fernández-Durán

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is considered to be the natural evolution for the
current Global System for Mobile Communications–Railways (GSM-R) in high
speed railway environments, not only for its technical advantages and
increased performance, but also due to the current evolution of public
communication systems. In railway environments, mission critical services,
operation assistance services, and passenger services must be supported by
reliable mobile communication systems. Reliability and availability are key
concerns for railway operators and as a consequence, railway operators are
usually conservative adopters of information and communication technologies
(ICT). This paper describes the feasibility of LTE as a successor to GSM-R for new
railway mobile communication systems. We identify key features of LTE as a
technology and analyze its ability to support both the migration of current
railway services and the provisioning of potential future ones. We describe the
key challenges to address specific requirements for railway communication
services including the provisioning of voice service in LTE networks, handover
performance, multicast multimedia transmission, and the provisioning of group
communications service and railway emergency calls. © 2013 Alcatel-Lucent.

Introduction systems must be viewed critically from both a com-

Control and safety technology in the railway
environment today relies on the standard railway net-
work communication system for voice and data com-
munications, the Global System for Mobile
Communications-Railways (GSM-R). Although this
system has proved to be reliable, it can support only
narrowband applications. Railway network operators
are constantly facing the challenge of enhancing both
the technical and commercial aspects of network
operation. Therefore, current railway communication
mercial and a technical standpoint to identify current
shortcomings and limitations, and develop a migra-
tion process from today’s legacy radio system to a
broadband and highly reliable one.
There are two main economic reasons to upgrade
the GSM-R system—the coming end of the GSM-R
lifecycle, and the need to improve the quality, secu-
rity, and safety of the passenger’s travelling experi-
ence [16]. The former is based on the fact that in the
mid-term roadmap of the evolution of the railway

Bell Labs Technical Journal 18(2), 237–253 (2013) © 2013 Alcatel-Lucent. • DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615
 Panel 1. Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Terms
2G—Second generation IPsec—Internet Protocol security
3G—Third generation ISI—Inter-symbol interference
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Project KPI—Key performance indicator
ACS—Access class barring LTE—Long Term Evolution
AMBR—Aggregate maximum bit rate MAC—Media access control
AMC—Adaptive modulation and coding MBMS—Multimedia broadcast multicast service
ARP—Allocation and retention priority MEC—Moving extended cell
ASCI—Advanced speech call items MIMO—Multiple input multiple output
ATO—Automatic train operation MME—Mobility management entity
CCTV—Closed circuit television MPLS—Multiprotocol Label Switching
CoMP—Coordinated multi point transmission OFDM—Orthogonal Frequency Division
CP—Cyclic prefix Multiplexing
CQI—Channel quality indicator PCC—Policy and charging control
CS—Circuit switched PGW—Packet gateway
CSFB—Circuit switched fallback PoC—Push-to-talk over cellular
eNodeB—Evolved NodeB ProSe—Proximity Services
EPC—Evolved packet core QCI—QoS class identifier
EPS—Evolved Packet System QoS—Quality of service
ETCS—European Train Control System RAMS—Reliability, Availability, Maintainability,
EVA—Extended vehicular A and Safety
GBR—Guaranteed bit rate RB—Radio bearer
GCSE—Group Communication System Enabler r.m.s.—Root mean square
GERAN—GSM and EDGE radio access network RRC—Radio resource control
GGSN—Gateway GPRS support node RS—Reference symbol
GPRS—General Packet Radio Service SGSN—Serving GPRS support node
GSM—Global System for Mobile Communications SIP—Session Initiation Protocol
GSM-R—GSM-Railways TFT—Traffic flow template
HARQ—Hybrid automatic repeat request TTI—Transport time interval
HHO—Hard handover UE—User equipment
HSPA—High Speed Packet Access UIC—International Union of Railways
HSS—Home subscriber server UMTS—Universal Mobile Telecommunications
ICI—Intercarrier interference System
ICT—Information and communication VGCS—Voice group call service
technologies VoIP—Voice over IP
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem VoLTE—Voice over LTE
IP—Internet Protocol

communication systems, support and maintenance
for the current GSM-R system will not only be out-
dated but also significantly more expensive. The lat-
ter can generate opportunities to increase railway
operator’s revenues through new valued-added
applications and services, but more importantly, to
reduce operations and maintenance costs [8]. New
broadband wireless communication technologies
will also improve passenger safety and security
through enhanced operational and safety services
such as driver video for advance views of platforms
and level crossings, as well as remote supervision of
passengers through onboard closed circuit television
(CCTV).
The reduction in the operators’ maintenance and
operational costs can be achieved by means of

238 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615

efficient operation of the operator’s rolling stock
based on real time information and improved com-
munication between moving trains, maintenance
staff, and track-side systems [6]. Within this scope,
the railway industry is promoting rail network auto-
mation which will lead to more economical and effi-
cient network management. Major constraints
associated with the network operation enhancement
process are related to the strict quality of service
(QoS) requirements for critical railway applications
like automatic train operation (ATO).
Long Term Evolution (LTE) should not be viewed
merely as a GSM-R substitute. LTE functions can
cover multiple information and communication
technologies (ICT) sectors for railways, and an inte-
grated network approach can play a key role in this
evolution process. Current communication and sig-
naling systems were custom-made for the railway
environment, which led to a high cost development
process. A single integrated and standardized solu-
tion can lower operation and deployment costs while
at the same time achieving higher performance and
flexibility. These solutions can avoid the need to
operate parallel heterogeneous networks, while sup-
porting effective and economical data communica-
tion between the different railway services.
Migration away from existing railway mobile
radio systems will only be possible if future systems
are able to address key railway industry concerns for
wireless communications. Future train radio systems
must support new value-added services as well as
legacy applications that have stringent demands for
quality of service. Railway-specific needs are referred
to as reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety
(RAMS) requirements, and include spectrum harmo-
nization, end-to-end QoS requirements, system per-
formance in high speed scenarios, a communication
system deployment strategy, backwards compatibility,
as well as the future system features.
This work assesses the challenges associated with
migrating the current railway communication system
towards a potential future wireless system. Since LTE
is seen as the natural successor to the current GSM-R
system, we will address the specific requirements and
needs for railway communication services using LTE.
Communication Systems in Railway Environments
Since the 1990s, digital wireless train communi-
cation systems have been gaining momentum as the
logical replacement for the legacy railway networks.
There is currently a wide variety of railway commu-
nication systems. Shunting radio, operations and
maintenance radio, track-to-train radio, paging com-
munications, and tunnel radio can all be supported
by several different wireless technologies.
Specific requirements for core and additional
communication services demand several key railway
functionalities that must be supported by train wire-
less radio communication systems. Some of these
functionalities may not be implemented in the com-
munication system and must be added to the stan-
dard functionalities [10, 13]. Therefore, features
must be carefully assessed in order to support the
specific existing and expected future functionalities
required for railways.
Railway Applications and Services
Current railway applications are focused on ensur-
ing essential radio communications such as train driver
and dispatcher communications, driver-to-driver opera-
tional communications, and trackside maintenance
team communications. Railway applications may be
classified into on-train applications, trackside applica-
tions, station applications, and depot, control center,
and office applications [19]. In addition, there are
voice and data applications which can be further cate-
gorized into critical core services and non-critical com-
munications services.
Critical core services are usually referred to as
mission critical services, and include critical railway
communications, train operational voice services
and operational data applications. Additional com-
munication services include passenger experience
services and business process support services such as
voice and data train crew communications and train
support applications [19]. Figure 1 shows the differ-
ent categories of railway group services.
The railway communication system of the
future must address both critical and non-critical appli-
cations. The main constraints for non-critical
applications include coverage, network capacity, and
DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 239
 Mission critical core services

Critical Staff Control

railway voice data
operations operations operations

Non-critical communications

Passenger experience/
Business process support
Quality of service

Figure 1.
Railway services classification.

• Trip information: routes, timetables, delay notification

• Digital signage
Passenger
• Electronic ticketing
experience
• High-speed Intranet access
• Personal onboard multimedia entertainment

• High-speed infrastructure for operations staff communications

Business process in stations and depots
support • Remote diagnostics and fleet maintenance
• Location-based services

• Real time video and data for remote driverless operation

• Real time traffic management
Operations
• Safety services including onboard CCTV, driver look-ahead video
support
• Communication-based train control and signaling
• Legacy voice communications

CCTV—Closed circuit television

Figure 2.
Future railway services.

cost requirements, while constraints for critical ser-
vices are mainly related to requiremeor for reliability,
availability, and prioritization. Clearly, there is a mis-
match between core services and additional services
QoS requirements. Mission critical services demand
assurances for low delay and high reliability, avail-
ability, and safety. The additional services are con-
strained only by available bandwidth.
The mismatch between critical and non-critical
applications can play a key role in the deployment strat-
egy for train radio infrastructure. Railway operators
have the option of deciding between deploying a private
radio system for railway purposes only, or deploying a
hybrid solution with a public telecommunication com-
pany. Figure 2 offers a comprehensive list of the future
services necessary in the railway environment.
It is clear that the significant improvement in
data rates that users experience with LTE has the
potential to meet the requirements for non-critical
railway services. However, as we stated in the previ-
ous section, LTE’s potential to address the challenge
of supporting critical railway applications has not yet
been analyzed. New requirements and functionalities
could arise from new services and applications in

240 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615

Table I. LTE features that support GSM-R railway functionalities.

LTE GSM-R
LTE IMS-based VoIP (VoLTE) + IMS-based push-to-talk over cellular (PoC)
Voice group call service (VGCS)
(This will be enhanced with the 3GPP Release 12 GCSE_LTE)
VoLTE + PoC: IP multicast of voice and video services
Voice broadcast calls (VBS)
(This will be enhanced with the 3GPP Release 12 GCSE_LTE)
Access class barring mechanisms + policy control rules +
Priority and preemption (eMLPP)
QoS mechanisms
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) addressing Functional addressing (FN)
Location-dependent addressing
Localization services in LTE (Release 10)
(LDA, eLDA)
Railway emergency calls
Emergency and critical safety voice services over IMS in LTE
(REC, e-REC)
Very low latency of LTE to support fast exchange of signaling
Fast call set up
(e.g., IMS-based PoC) + Access class barring
IMS-based SMS service
Data exchange
Use SG interface between MME and MSC server
(SMS, shunting)
MME-based SMS service
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Project MME—Management mobile entity
eLDA—Enhanced LDA MSC—Mobile switching center
eMLPP—Enhanced Multi-Level Precedence and Preemption PoC—Push-to-talk over cellular
e-REC—Enhanced REC QoS—Quality of service
FN—Functional number REC—Railway emergency calls
GCSE—Group Communication System Enablers SG—Signaling gateway
GSM—Global System for Mobile Communications SIP—Session Initiation Protocol
GSM-R—GSM-Railways SMS—Short message service
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem VBS—Video broadcast service
IP—Internet Protocol VGCS—Voice group call service
LDA—Location dependent addressing VoIP—Voice over IP
LTE—Long Term Evolution VoLTE—Voice over LTE

railway environments, and at the very least, future
train radio systems will have to fulfill current require-
ments around RAMS and QoS [16].
LTE Features for Supporting Required Railway
Functionalities
Railway services demand specific functionalities
for train radio systems. Through GSM-R, the GSM
standard was enhanced with advanced speech call
item (ASCI) functionalities to meet railway needs, and
LTE must be similarly enhanced in order to take its
place. Table I shows the LTE features and mechanisms
necessary to implement the railway functionalities.
The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is the tech-
nology proposed to support multimedia services in a
future LTE railway system. IMS multimedia capabilities
will allow voice calls to be easily combined with other
sessions, like video streaming or conferencing. This
enables additional possibilities for new railway service
applications [5].
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) facilitates the
formation, modification and execution of communi-
cation sessions between individual or multiple par-
ticipants. These may include instant messages,
phone and video calls, or interactive multimedia
conferences. This protocol can be the key to enable
the functional addressing required feature for the
LTE system. SIP addresses are used to find the user’s
network location so that they can be reached any-
where [22].

DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 241

 Push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) service deployed
on an IMS service delivery platform offers an efficient
way to provide a voice group call service (VGCS) func-
tionality in LTE, while fulfilling railway services
requirements for average end-to-end latency (< 400
milliseconds) and fast call setup. Table II shows the
call set up times defined by the International Union of
Railways (UIC). It is important to note that the sup-
port of efficient voice group communications in public
switched (PS) networks is still an open research area
which may benefit from the contributions of several
3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 12
work item groups, such as Group Communication
System Enabler (GCSE, 3GPP TS 22.468) and
Proximity Services (ProSe, 3GPP 22.803) along with
existing features such as multimedia broadcast multi-
cast service (MBMS) to handle very large group calls.
3GPP standards specify LTE latency values under
100 milliseconds. In Alcatel-Lucent’s commercial
deployments of LTE systems, end-to-end LTE latency
values under 40 milliseconds have been measured.
This high performance has been achieved thanks to
an improved LTE voice scheduler coupled with novel
and improved solutions for QoS management.
Further, Alcatel-Lucent’s commercial deployments of
LTE technology have achieved latency values around
20 milliseconds for videotelephony service, which is
well below the railway requirement. The call setup
time for typical PoC sessions over IMS can be within
275 milliseconds according to [14], which is below
the call setup limits suggested by the UIC [21].
Nevertheless, one possible constraint must be
considered when assessing the suitability of the IMS
PoC solution for voice group calls in railway environ-
ments. This constraint is related to the fact that in
contrast to PoC functionalities, voice group call ser-
vices (VGCS) are radio cell based [16]. The IMS-
based PoC architecture is presented in Figure 3.
The voice service provision, priority and pre-
emption mechanisms, and QoS and access barring
mechanisms, will be further described in the follow-
ing sections.
Voice Service Provisioning Over IP in LTE Networks
The GSM-R functionality for delivering voice
services is considered to be a key feature for railway
242 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615
Table II. Call setup times defined by the International
Union of Railways.
Call type Call setup in seconds
Railway emergency call <2
High priority calls <5
operation. Provision of voice services in the LTE stan-
dard is still a major challenge, and one that must be
carefully assessed and analyzed. Solutions using the
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and the circuit
switched fallback (CSFB) option appear to be the
most promising [18]. However, an IMS-based solu-
tion known as One Voice Profile for Voice over LTE
(VoLTE) is gaining momentum, and we believe it
should also be considered as a solution for support-
ing voice communications over LTE networks in rail-
way environments. The VoLTE solution architecture
is presented in Figure 4.
Circuit switched fallback (CSFB), also known by
its 3GPP designation as specification 23.272, is an
interim solution for delivering voice services in LTE
networks [9]. For every voice call made or received,
an LTE mobile device must perform a handover to a
2G or 3G network, attach to that network, and then
move back to the LTE network upon ending the call.
This additional delay for call setup measured by
Alcatel-Lucent in commercial deployments can vary
between 880 milliseconds in a CS fallback to GERAN,
and 370 milliseconds in a fallback to a legacy UMTS
Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN) circuit
switched network. As a consequence, CSFB may not
be a suitable solution for voice service provisioning
due to the strict call setup time requirements for criti-
cal railway services like emergency calls. Table III
shows the main characteristics of each solution and
the advantages and disadvantages from the railway
point of view.
Quality of Service Mechanisms and Access Control in LTE
Networks
Service prioritization, the ability to preempt
users, and quality of service are all crucial elements
 Ips
Presence
server

A Ipl R
C E
C Im M
E GLMS O
S T
PoC
S E
IMS If Ik
client
N It N
CORE
E PoC server E
UE
T T
W W
O O
R R
K Is K

In
GLMS—Group list management server
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem
IP—Internet Protocol
PoC—Push-to-talk over cellular
UE—User equipment

Figure 3.
IMS based push-to-talk over cellular architecture.

Packet data
TAS SCC
Packet voice
E-UTRAN IMS AS
IMS signaling

S-GW P-GW PDN

eNB

AS—Application server PDN—Packet data network

eNB—Evolved NodeB P-GW—PDN gateway
E-UTRAN—Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access SCC—Service centralization and continuity
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem S-GW—Sweving gateway
Ip—Internet Protocol TAS—Telephony application server
LTE—Long Term Evolution

Figure 4.
Voice service provision over IMS in LTE.

DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 243

Table III. LTE Voice over IP solutions approved by the 3GPP.

VoIP solution VoLTE (IMS) CSFB

Seamless continuity of
voice services
SMS support technology
Support for
IMS-based services
Primary advantages for
railway operation
Drawbacks
2G—Second generation
3G—Third generation
3GPP—3rd Generation Partnership Project
CAPEX—Capital expenditures
CSFB—Circuit switched fallback
GSM—Global System for Mobile Communications
GSM-R—GSM-Railways
ICS—IMS centralized service
IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem
Single radio/voice call continuity mechanisms Fallback to legacy circuit-switched
GSM-R network
SMS over IP functionality SMS over SGs
(IP short message gateway)
Supports IMS-based services only Requires terminal and/or MSC-
based IMS centralized services
features to support IMS services
Supports simultaneous voice and data over LTE No IMS infrastructure required
Low service latency Relatively low initial CAPEX
Reduces setup times for calls Ready to apply
Supports LTE QoS mechanisms Supports handover of active calls
between LTE and GSM/UMTS
Supports handover from LTE to GSM/UMTS to LTE
Provides end-to-end IP multimedia services
Enables eventual shutdown of GSM-R network
IMS infrastructure must be deployed and inte- Additional call set up latency
grated into the operator’s network. (from 1 to 8 seconds)
High initial CAPEX Fallback to 2G will suspend LTE
data transmission
Fallback to 3G will reduce data
transmission
IP—Internet Protocol
LTE—Long Term Evolution
MSC—Mobile switching center
QoS—Quality of service
SG—Signaling gateway
SMS—Short message service
UMTS—Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
VoLTE—Voice over LTE

for a future railway communication system. In rail-
way environments, LTE must assure the delivery of
data and voice packets while meeting a combination
of requirements for delay, jitter, dropped call rate or
data error rate, handover interruption time, maxi-
mum call setup time and maximum/guaranteed bit
rate. Real time scheduling mechanisms in LTE for
resource assignation according to user priorities and
service categories are a key element for assuring rail-
way services QoS and RAMS requirements. The key
LTE features to support the required railway func-
tionalities are described below.
• End-to-end QoS mechanisms [9]. The LTE QoS
architecture is based on a bearer system. The
traffic flow template (TFT) is a set of packet fil-
ters associated with an Evolved Packet System
(EPS) bearer. The bearers can be default or dedi-
cated, and they have four configuration param-
eters: QoS class identifier (QCI), allocation and
retention priority (ARP), guaranteed bit rate
(GBR), and aggregate maximum bit rate (AMBR).
The suitable configuration of this set of parame-
ters for each one of the railway services must be
carefully evaluated to meet current GSM-R
requirements.
The ARP parameter is stored in the home sub-
scriber profile (HSS) and it indicates the user pri-
ority level as well as the preemption capability

244 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615

 and vulnerability. ARP control mechanisms can
deny a radio bearer request or preempt an exist-
ing one, and accept the new radio bearer request.
This is a key parameter for implementing the
preemption functionality.
An EPS bearer is established throughout several
interfaces, therefore the bearer QoS parameters
must be mapped into the QoS parameters for
each LTE interface. For instance, the mapping of
radio bearer QoS parameters to transport net-
work Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
parameters must be carefully assessed.
• Real time resource scheduling [9]. The media access
control (MAC) scheduler is in charge of radio
resource dynamic assignation depending on
bearer QoS levels, channel quality indicator
(CQI) parameters, UE radio conditions, the sta-
tus of different EPS bearers, and on the interfer-
ence levels between adjacent cells.
• Dynamic access control [9]. The access control
mechanisms in LTE are implemented both in
the radio access interface and in the LTE net-
work’s evolved packet core (EPC). Access con-
trol in the EPC can be implemented by
establishing access classes. There are 15 access
classes defined in the LTE standard, with differ-
ent ARP values to define different user catego-
ries for railway environments.
Access class barring (ACS) is the main mecha-
nism for the radio interface. Access control to the
core network is implemented by means of the policy
charging and control (PCC) functionalities, which
are listed below:
• Policy control. Policy control supports several fea-
tures to control QoS, packet forward, and the
establishment of EPS bearers.
• IMS emergency session support. This feature can
support emergency calls in the railway environ-
ment, as we stated previously.
• Service prioritization. This feature is concerned
with guaranteeing that mission critical services
in railway environments continue their opera-
tion, even if the network capacity is constrained.
• Access class barring. The access class-barring mecha-
nisms control the cell selection and reselection
procedures. Cell-barring prevents users from
joining select or reselect cells, even in emergency
calls. Cell-reserved maintains cells for operator
activities and only access classes from 11 to 15
are allowed for cell selection or reselection. This
feature makes it possible to deploy a mixed net-
work with a public commercial operator, reserv-
ing some cells for railway purposes only.
Handover in LTE
The LTE standard supports hard handover (HHO)
mechanisms, which in turn reduces the complexity
of the LTE network architecture. Requirements in
terms of handover time and failure rate are a key
challenge due to the frequent handovers in railway
high speed environments. Research is therefore
required to determine whether the LTE HHO mecha-
nisms will completely fulfill railway service require-
ments for QoS and RAMS, especially in high speed
scenarios.
The LTE handover is performed directly between
two evolved NodeBs (eNodeBs), which makes for a
quick preparation phase. Mobility over X2 can be
categorized according to its resilience to packet loss:
the handover can be termed “seamless” if it mini-
mizes interruption during UE movement, and “loss-
less” if it tolerates no loss of packets at all. The LTE
hard handover mechanism can use the X2 interface
to forward the data packets that are not transmitted
for lossless mobility. We can therefore assume that
the LTE HHO mechanism can fulfill the strict railway
QoS requirements in terms of packet loss. However,
a handover performance evaluation for real LTE
deployments in high speed environments may be
required to verify this last statement.
LTE Network Coverage Design Process and
Network Performance in High Speed
Environments
LTE offers major improvement over existing
mobile technologies both in terms of network capac-
ity bandwidth and other specific railway require-
ments such as latency or reliability. Nevertheless,
meeting consumer demand for on-train broadband
service while supporting bandwidth-intensive
DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 245
applications such as on-train CCTV surveillance or
automatic train operation is still a challenge that
requires particular attention when planning and
dimensioning network deployment.
LTE Network Coverage Design Process in High Speed
Environments
Designing for proper coverage in a high speed
environment is a major challenge compared to a com-
mercial deployment in the typical mobile environ-
ment. Major factors that influence coverage design
include the network operation frequency, deploy-
ment scenario terrain information, and specific rail-
way requirements such as overlapping coverage areas
and handover issues. In addition, the significant loss
of signal penetration in the shielded cars of moving
trains must be taken into account.
To improve coverage in moving trains, LTE access
devices can be installed on top of the train while
indoor coverage could be improved with moving
relays and small cell devices, like femtocell access
points. This item is currently under study in 3GPP
specification 36.836 [3]. The proposed architecture for
an LTE moving relay on trains is shown in Figure 5.
Besides improving train coverage indoors, there are
several proposals focused on enhancing access to LTE
broadband communications in high speed environments.
These include the coordinated multipoint transmission
(CoMP) architecture and the moving extended cell
(MEC) concept. These novel architectures could be
employed to reduce the number of required handovers
in high speed environments [11, 15].
LTE Network Performance in High Speed Environments
LTE performance and capacity at high speeds
should be carefully assessed. Important issues that
should be evaluated include:
• The Doppler shift and delay spread effect in LTE down-
link and uplink channel performance.
It is important to check the cyclic prefix (CP)
length to ensure robustness against the worst
delay spread (Tdmax) which could provoke inter-
symbol interference (ISI) due to the multipath
components of the railway channel. 3GPP 36.101
defines three different multipath fading channel
246 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615
models to be used in the design and evaluation
of an LTE system. The most relevant channel
model characteristics are presented in Table IV.
In LTE, the CP length in the normal mode is
4.6875 μs and 16.67 μs in the extended mode,
while the maximum delay spread for the
Extended Vehicular A (EVA) model is 2.510 μs.
Therefore, the standard CP length is sufficient to
handle with the worst delay spread.
The subcarrier interval for orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) in the LTE standard
avoids the impact of intercarrier interference (ICI)
on LTE performance, but the issue must be evalu-
ated in high speed scenarios [17, 20]. Coherent
time in a high speed rail channel will be reduced
as the train speed and carrier frequency increase
because radio channel characteristics can vary
rapidly and significantly along a high speed rail
line. The resultant ICI could dramatically reduce
OFDM system performance.
It is important to evaluate the required spacing in
time and frequency between the LTE cell refer-
ence symbols (RS), to evaluate LTE’s robustness
against the Doppler and delay spread.
To evaluate LTE robustness against the Doppler
spread, it is necessary to calculate the channel
coherence time (Tc). If the RS time interval is less
than the channel Tc, it will be possible to use the
channel estimation from the known reference sym-
bols to equalize the other non-RS OFDM symbols.
The Doppler shift should thus be calculated for
this purpose. The Doppler shift (fd), can be calcu-
lated as: fd = 2·fc·(vm/c), where fc is the carrier
frequency, vm is the UE speed in meters per sec-
ond, and c is the speed of light. The coherence
time can be approximated as Tc = 0.423/fd . In a
railway scenario, the typical vm value can be set
up to 350 Km/h, and the carrier frequency can
be considered to be 2.6 GHz, which is the worst-
case scenario. Then, the Doppler shift is 843 Hz
and the coherence time is about 502 μs, so dur-
ing this time, the channel can be considered
invariant. The interval between the RS in one
LTE radio bearer (RB) is 285.42 μs, which is less
than the coherence time of the channel.
 IMS
platform
SGi

EPC
P-GW
S1 S10

S5-6 S8
S11
MME S-GW
eNB

LTE NETWORK

EXTERNAL LTE
E-UTRAN
ANTENNA

SMALL CELL

eNB—Evolved NodeB IMS—IP Multimedia Subsystem P-GW—PDN gateway

EPC—Evolved packet core IP—Internet Protocol S-GW—Serving gateway
E-UTRAN—Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access LTE—Long Term Evolution

Figure 5.
LTE moving relay in railways.

Table IV. EVA channel model characteristics.

Model Number of channel Delay spread Maximum excess tap delay

taps (r.m.s.) (span)
Extended vehicular A model (EVA) 9 357 ns 2510 ns
EVA—Extended vehicular A
r.m.s.—Root mean square

DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 247

 In order to evaluate the robustness of LTE against
the delay spread, it is necessary to calculate the
channel coherence bandwidth (Bc). If the RS fre-
quency spacing in an LTE RB is less than the
channel Bc, a flat fading channel can be assumed
for all the subcarriers between the RS subcarri-
ers, and therefore, the channel will be estimated
correctly for those non-RS subcarriers.
The 90 percent and 50 percent coherence band-
widths are given by Bc90% = 1/50·σrms and Bc50%
= 1/5·σrms, where σrms is the root mean square
(r.m.s.) delay spread. Considering the maximum
r.m.s. delay spread value for the EVA channel
model, which can be found in Table IV, the val-
ues obtained are: Bc90% = 56 kHz and Bc50% =
560 kHz. The RS symbols in an LTE RB can be
found every three subcarriers, and are thus 45
kHz, which is less than both the 90 percent and
50 percent Bc values.
• The effect of high speed in resource scheduling. The
radio resource management functionalities opti-
mize the radio resource assignation by means of
algorithms that schedule channel use in both the
time and frequency domains. This scheduler pro-
cess is based on the control signaling information
provided by the user equipment in terms of ACK/
NACK and channel state reports (CQI). In a high
speed environment, the channel measurements
for channel estimation may not be able to adapt
fast enough to channel variations. A possible
consequence of this undesirable effect could be a
slight loss in the system diversity gain [17].
Convergence to an all IP Network
The convergence to an all IP network will pro-
vide for more efficient use of the limited capacity at
the LTE network interfaces, as well as reduced costs
for implementation and operations for both compo-
nents and systems. The major impact of moving to an
LTE all IP network is the process of upgrading the
railway transmission network to an IP MPLS net-
work. The upgrade can help railway operators meet
current QoS requirements, while reducing costs and
enabling the development of new services.
248 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615
Building mechanisms for QoS assurance, guar-
anteed call setup times, proper service prioritization,
and IP security are among the major challenges and
drawbacks of the convergence process. As previously
discussed, LTE QoS mechanisms are likely to fulfill
railway requirements. The call setup times will
depend on which LTE Voice over IP (VoIP) mecha-
nism is chosen, and on the IMS signalization service
mapping into QoS requirements.
RAMS Requirements in Railway Environments
Core requirements for railway services govern
the design of railway communication systems, and
must be analyzed in light of standards that quantify
and assess railway reliability, availability, maintain-
ability, and safety. LTE capabilities and methods must
be specifically analyzed to determine whether they
can meet RAMS requirements [4].
Reliability and Availability
Reliability and availability concepts are closely
related. Reliability requirements for radio link access
depend on good radio coverage planning and dimen-
sioning for the LTE network. This is a difficult task,
due to the complexity of the railway environment,
which includes bridges, viaducts, and tunnels [7]. To
face these challenges, radio planning software must
take into account not only the environment, but also
the features and capabilities of LTE standard.
Adaptative modulation and coding (AMC), hybrid
automatic repeat request (HARQ) mechanisms, mul-
tiple input multiple output (MIMO) capabilities, and
short transport time interval (TTI) values can be
employed to reduce the complexity of this cumber-
some task.
One key factor when assessing LTE reliability is
the inherent support in the LTE architecture for mul-
tiple geo-redundancy mechanisms such as the dual
homing of the eNodeB, as well as the geographic
redundancy of EPC nodes and load sharing capabili-
ties, which increases the overall reliability and avail-
ability of deployed LTE networks.
LTE provides self-organizing capabilities, which
can be leveraged to improve reliability and availability.
Self-healing and self-configuration schemes can help
the network to recover when a dropped eNodeB is
detected by modifying the transmitting power of
other eNodeBs or forwarding incoming calls to nodes
with enough resources to establish and maintain a
user’s connections [1].
A number of key performance indicators (KPIs)
can be defined to assess the availability and reliability
of an LTE end-to-end solution. Recent studies have
concluded that LTE voice service will meet the cur-
rent reliability and availability requirements for
GSM-R [12].
IT Security
The primary challenges with respect to cyber-
security are related to coding and integrity protection
of radio resource control (RRC) messages and user
data. LTE offers mechanisms for ensuring data integrity
which are much more robust than the mechanisms
available for GSM-R, and therefore, communication
system vulnerabilities are reduced.
LTE employs mechanisms in the air interface for
the mutual authentication of the UE and the net-
work, and also for ciphering and checking message
integrity in data communications between the mobile
terminal and the eNodeB. Due to the IP nature of the
LTE system, security risks are primarily related to
the proper implementation of protocols for secure IP
transport (e.g., IPsec) for avoiding data manipulation
and malicious attacks.
Spectrum Considerations
The selection of the frequency band operations
plays a key role in the network planning and dimen-
sioning process. In Europe, the spectrum allocated
for GSM-R comprises the 873-880 MHz band in the
uplink and the 918-925 MHz frequency band in
the downlink. The LTE infrastructure has been
designed to operate in different carrier bandwidths
from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz and in a wide range of fre-
quency bands. Railway operators will have a choice
of deploying future railway communication systems
in the frequency bands currently allocated for rail-
ways, or migrating to a different one. The most likely
frequency bands for the deployment of LTE networks
include those below.
• 700 MHz to 800 MHz. These frequency bands,
scheduled for LTE deployment in Europe [16],
are part of the “digital dividend.” Those are the
frequency bands released as a result of the con-
version from analog to digital television.
• Spectrum refarming. 2G/3G bands. 3G network
deployment considerations include global mobil-
ity as a main objective. To reach this objective, it
was necessary to harmonize the spectrum [8].
• 400 MHz band. The use of this frequency band for
broadband communications has gained atten-
tion, not only in railway environments, but also
in public safety and utility installations, since it
allows for larger coverage areas. The main issue
in this frequency band is the availability of band-
width since these frequencies are currently being
used for radio trunking communications. To
overcome this limitation and still be consistent
with LTE, narrower bandwidths such as 1.4 MHz,
3 MHz, and 5 MHz have been proposed
• Current GSM-R and extended GSM-R bands.
Assessments are needed to determine if currently
allocated spectrum can be reused for an LTE
communication system in the railway environ-
ment, and whether the available frequency
bands can fulfill requirements in terms of band-
width demand. Public operators are likely to
deploy LTE or HSPA cellular systems in the 900
MHz band due to the good propagation condi-
tions, and therefore LTE or HSPA interferences
operating with railway radio mobile systems in
the current GSM-R band will have to be care-
fully evaluated. Nevertheless, LTE’s capabilities
for flexible spectrum allocation can play a key
role in mitigating interference with legacy rail-
way mobile radio systems.
Table V shows the specified frequency bands for
LTE and the different categories of bands for deploy-
ment [2]. Bands 1, 3, 7, 8 and 20 are already used for
LTE deployments in Europe. The table includes the
digital dividend band (band 20), bands that are
DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 249
Table V. Frequency bands for LTE deployment.

Uplink (UL) operating band Downlink (DL) operating band Duplex mode
E-UTRA BS receive/UE transmit BS transmit/UE receive
operating band
FUL_low – FUL_high FDL_low – FDL_high
1 1920 MHz – 1980 MHz 2110 MHz – 2170 MHz FDD
2 1850 MHz – 1910 MHz 1930 MHz – 1990 MHz FDD
3 1710 MHz – 1785 MHz 1805 MHz – 1880 MHz FDD
4 1710 MHz – 1755 MHz 2110 MHz – 2155 MHz FDD
5 824 MHz – 849 MHz 869 MHz – 894 MHz FDD
7 2500 MHz – 2570 MHz 2620 MHz – 2690 MHz FDD
8 880 MHz – 915 MHz 925 MHz – 960 MHz FDD
...
20 832 MHz – 862 MHz 791 MHz – 821 MHz FDD
23 2000 MHz – 2020 MHz 2180 MHz – 2200 MHz FDD
25 1850 MHz – 1915 MHz 1930 MHz – 1995 MHz FDD
...
41 2496 MHz 2690 MHz 2496 MHz 2690 MHz TDD

BS—Base station TDD—Time Division Duplexing

DL—Downlink UE—User equipment
E-UTRA—Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access UL—Uplink
FDD—Frequency Division Duplexing UMTS—Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
LTE—Long Term Evolution

designated for refarming (bands 1, 3 and 8) and a
new 2600 MHz band (band 7).
One of the main concerns for rail customers is
cross border interoperability. A harmonized spec-
trum is a key element to achieving this goal other-
wise system equipment would have to support
multiple frequency bands, which adds time, expense,
complexity, and inefficiency.
Selecting a network operating frequency requires
careful consideration. Higher frequencies adversely
impact propagation conditions and lead to a more
severe Doppler effect. As a consequence, smaller cell
sizes are needed to provide required QoS levels.
Hence, more base stations will be needed to service a
geographical area, which in turn may result higher
deployment costs.
In addition, we must carefully analyze the impli-
cations of the transfers that occur with handovers in
high speed rail services. Cellular coverage along
railroad tracks is specifically designed so that the
cells overlap in order to allow problem-free hand-
offs. The length of the transfer depends on the speed
of the train and the time required by each radio
technology to make a transfer. Small cells require
frequent handovers, which translates into increased
network signaling, and reduced bandwidth for data
transmission.
Backwards Compatibility and Migration Strategy
An important consideration in adopting LTE as a
communications system in railway environments
is backwards compatibility with the legacy GSM-R
system.
The LTE architecture employs interconnection
units to allow different technologies to access the LTE
core, known as the evolved packet core (EPC). This
feature allows handovers to be performed between
heterogeneous networks—for example, access to a

250 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615

GSM-R network from an LTE network and vice
versa—and it ensures that functionalities and ser-
vices offered through GSM-R can still be used in the
LTE network if both technologies coexist during a
transition period.
Since the expectation is that there will be long
migration period from GSM-R to LTE and that both
radio technologies will coexist for some length of
time, migration strategy will play a key role in LTE
adoption. LTE is clearly the leading candidate to
become the successor to GSM-R, but it needs to be
carefully integrated with existing railway solutions
to leverage the ICT expenditures railway operators
have already made. We advocate a three-step
approach to migration. In step 1, the existing GSM-R
network would support mission critical voice and
European Train Control System (ETCS) layer 2 opera-
tions while the LTE network would support non-crit-
ical high speed data access. In this first step toward
migration, the GSM-R system transmission network
architecture would also evolve to an IP/MPLS archi-
tecture to simplify the migration process.
Step 2 consists of employing the LTE network to
support multimedia railway services such as CCTV
safety applications, maintenance applications, high
speed data transmission, and voice services for regu-
lar operations. Of course, interoperability tests would
need to be performed between LTE and GSM-R to
implement this migration.
Step 3 would confirm LTE as the rightful succes-
sor to GSM-R and the only radio communication
system for railway environments. At that point, all
railway services would be fully supported by LTE
technology, which in turn will lead to the evolution
of current GSM-R network entities into LTE entities.
For example, the serving GPRS support node (SGSN)
would become an LTE mobility management entity
(MME) and the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN)
would become a packet gateway (PGW) in the LTE
core network.
A number of technical issues are directly related
to the radius of the cell. Higher operating frequencies
demand smaller cell sizes because of adverse propa-
gation conditions, and thus more eNodeBs must be
deployed to reach required levels of coverage. High
speed railways require overlapping cells due to fre-
quent handovers. The areas of overlap are a function
of the time required for LTE handover as well as the
speed of the train. Deployment of small cells will
result in frequent handovers, and as a consequence,
an increase in signaling overhead, which will reduce
the available network bandwidth.
Conclusions
This paper analyzed and evaluated the potential
steps which must be taken for a successful migration
from today’s GSM-R communication system to a new
broadband system for railway communications.
Though LTE is seen as a logical successor to GSM-R,
LTE communication systems first must meet specific
requirements for quality of service as well as reliability,
availability, maintenance, and safety. We analyzed the
challenges that must be overcome for LTE to emerge as
the new standard for railway communications.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful for the support of the
Spanish Ministry of Economía and Competitividad
under the IPT-2011-1034-37000 (TECRAIL) project.
References
[1] 3rd Generation Partnership Project,
“Telecommunication Management, Self-
Organizing Networks (SON), Self-Healing
Concepts and Requirements (Release 10),” 3GPP
TS 32.541, v10.0.0, Mar. 2011, <http://
www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/html-info/32541.htm>.
[2] 3rd Generation Partnership Project, “Evolved
Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA),
User Equipment (UE) Radio Transmission and
Reception (Release 10),” 3GPP TS 36.101,
v10.5.0, Dec. 2011, <http://www.3gpp.org/
ftp/Specs/html-info/36101.htm>.
[3] 3rd Generation Partnership Project, “Technical
Specification Group Radio Access Network,
Mobile Relay for E-UTRA” 3GPP TR 36.836,
v2.0.0., Sept. 2012, <http://www.3gpp.org/
ftp/Specs/html-info/36836.htm>.
[4] Asociación Española de Normalización y
Certificación (AENOR), “Aplicaciones
Ferroviarias. Especificación y Demostración de
la Fiabilidad, la Disponibilidad, la
Mantenibilidad y la Seguridad (RAMS),”
UNE-EN 50126.1:2005 CORR:2010, June 2010.
DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 251
 [5] B. Badard, V. Diascorn, G. Boulmier, A. D.
Vicard, V. Renard, and A. H. Dimassi,
“Migration to VoIP over Mobile Networks:
Technical Challenges and Economic
Opportunity Analysis,” Proc. 14th Internat.
Telecommun. Network Strategy and Planning
Symp. (NETWORKS ’10) (Warsaw, Pol., 2010).
[6] G. Barbu, E-Train: Broadband Communication
with Moving Trains, International Union of
Railways (UIC), Technical Report, June 2010.
[7] C. Briso-Rodríguez, J. M. Cruz, and J. I.
Alonso, “Measurements and Modeling of
Distributed Antenna Systems in Railway
Tunnels,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., 56:5
(2007), 2870–2879.
[8] A. Furuskär, T. Jönsson, and M. Lundevall,
“The LTE Radio Irface—Key Characteristics
and Performance,” Proc. 19th IEEE Internat.
Symp. on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio
Commun. (PIMRC ’08) (Cannes, Fra., 2008).
[9] S. Gavrilovic’, “Standard Based Solutions for
Voice and SMS Services over LTE,” Proc. 33rd
Internat. Conv. on Inform. and Commun.
Technol., Electron. and Microelectron. (MIPRO
’10) (Opatija, Cro., 2010), pp. 334–339.
[10] GSM-R Operators Group, “UIC Project
EIRENE: System Requirements Specification,”
Reference P0011D010, v15.1, June 2010,
<http:\\www.uic.org>.
[11] G.-Y. Kim, J. A. C. Lee, and S. Hong, “Analysis
of Macro-Diversity in LTE-Advanced,” KSII
Trans. Internet and Inform. Syst., 5:9 (2011),
1596–1612.
[12] M. Liem and V. B. Mendiratta, “Mission Critical
Communication Networks for Railways,” Bell
Labs Tech. J., 16:3 (2011), 29–46.
[13] I. Ljubic and D. Simunic, “Advanced Speech
Call Items for GSM-Railway,” Proc. 1st
Internat. Conf. on Wireless Commun., Veh.
Technol., Inform. Theory and Aerospace &
Electron. Syst. Technol. (Wireless VITAE ’09)
(Aalborg, Den., 2009), pp. 131–136.
[14] C. Lu, Delay Analysis of Push-To-Talk over
Cellular (PoC) Service Solutions for Public
Safety Communications over LTE Networks,
Master Thesis, Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya, Aug. 2012.
[15] W. Luo, R. Zhang, and X. Fang, “A CoMP Soft
Handover Scheme for LTE Systems in High
Speed Railway,” EURASIP J. Wireless
Commun. and Networking, 2012:196 (2012).
252 Bell Labs Technical Journal DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615
[16] K.-D. Masur and D. Mandoc, LTE/SAE—The
Future Railway Mobile Radio System? Long-
Term Visions on Railway Mobile Radio
Technologies, International Union of Railways
(UIC), Technical Report, v1.1, Nov. 2009.
[17] S. Nonchev, M. Valkama, and R. Hamila,
“Effect of High-Velocity Scenarios on the
Performance of MIMO LTE Packet
Scheduling,” Proc. 8th Internat. Multi-Conf.
on Syst., Signals & Devices (SSD ’11) (Sousse,
Tun., 2011).
[18] V. Paisal, “Seamless Voice over LTE,” Proc. 4th
IEEE Internat. Conf. on Internet Multimedia
Services Architecture and Application (IMSAA
’10) (Bangalore, Ind., 2010).
[19] Rail Safety and Standards Board, Assessing
Bandwidth Demand for Future
Communications Needs on GB Railways,
RSSB Research Programme, Operations and
Management, Aug. 2010, <http://www.rssb.
co.uk/sitecollectiondocuments/pdf/reports/
research/T817_rpt_final.pdf>.
[20] X. Ren, G. Ren, and C. Le, “Carrier Frequency
Offset Estimation for PUCCH in High Speed
Train Environment,” Proc. 12th Internat.
Conf. on Electron. Packaging Technol. and
High Density Packaging (ICEPT-HDP ’11)
(Shanghai, Chn., 2011).
[21] S. Wootton, “Railway Mobile Communication
System User Requirements Specification,” Ref.
P0011D011, v1.0, International Union of
Railways (UIC), Oct. 2010.
[22] C. Wu, “User ID Provisioning for SIP Registration
in IMS,” Proc. 2nd Internat. Conf. on Educ.
Technol. and Comput. (ICETC ’10) (Shanghai,
Chn., 2010), vol. 2, pp. V2-206–V2-210.
(Manuscript approved March 2013)
JAIME CALLE-SÁNCHEZ is a Ph.D. candidate at the
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)
in Spain. He received his degree in
telecommunications engineering from
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM).
His research areas include geographical
information systems and the planning and
dimensioning of new generation mobile and wireless
radio systems. He has participated in two nationally
funded research projects in Spain and in one European
funded research project, CELTIC, for the dimensioning
and deployment of heterogeneous mobile and wireless
systems. He has several publications in national than 40 research projects and contracts financed by
symposiums regarding planning for Worldwide national and international institutions and companies.
Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) He has authored more than 100 publications in
networks supported by a GIS database, the scientific journals, symposium proceedings, seminars
dimensioning of Wi-Fi, and network QoS for 3G/3.5G and reports. In addition, he holds three patents.
networks. His doctoral research includes analyzing
indoor localization systems with LTE femtocell
deployments. He is also working on a project that is
ALFONSO FERNÁNDEZ-DURÁN is a solutions architect
assessing LTE as the next-generation mobile
at Alcatel-Lucent in Madrid, Spain. He
communication system for railway environments.
received a degree in telecommunications
engineering as well as a Ph.D. from
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)
MARIANO MOLINA-GARCÍA received a degree in in Spain, and an international masters
telecommunications engineering from degree in management from EMLYON business school.
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Dr. Fernandez Duran began his career at Alcatel’s
Spain. His main research area is the survey Corporate Research Center, where he was involved in
and development of planning and sizing signal processing and radio communications activities,
models for wireless communications developing the radio front ends for Alcatel’s dual-
systems. In this research field, he has several mode GSM/DCS terminals. He later moved to the
publications in national and international symposiums, company’s Wireless Access Competence Center, where
and he has taken part in several research projects he was project manager for the development of several
related to the deployment of wireless networks in LMDS and wireless Internet Protocol (IP) broadband
complex environments. At present, he is working radio access products. He has participated in nine
towards a Ph.D., conducting research and analysis on research projects for the European Space Agency,
hybrid wireless networks and femtocell deployments in European Commission Framework Programs, and
indoor environments, and developing quality of service Spanish national programs, and he has led and
optimization algorithms for application in automatic coordinated five of them. He has authored more than
network planning procedures. 45 publications in scientific journals, symposium
proceedings, seminars, reports, and books. He also
holds 20 patents. He is currently involved in activities
related to a telecommunication solutions architecture
JOSÉ I. ALONSO received a degree in
for industry and the public sector. ◆
telecommunications engineering as well
as a Ph.D. from Polytechnic University of
Madrid (UPM), Spain. Dr. Alonso began his
career at Telettra España, S.A., as a
microwave design engineer. He then
joined to the Department of Signals, Systems and
Radiocommunications at UPM, where he is currently a
full professor. His research has included analysis and
simulation of high speed/high frequency integrated
circuits and their interconnections, and the computer-
aided design and measurement of hybrid and GaAs
monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) and
their applications in the development and
implementation of mobile, optical fiber, and
communications systems. He has also worked on the
development of broadband point-multipoint radio
systems (LMDS) in millimeter frequencies and the
planning of wireless local area networks and their
potential applications. He has participated in more

DOI: 10.1002/bltj.21615 Bell Labs Technical Journal 253