July 14th 2015 – The first of Chiltern Railways’ nine newly upgraded Class 168 trains has been launched. Serving routes into London Marylebone, the vehicles come complete with what is believed to be the world’s first onboard train communications network with a fully integrated centralised backend configuration and monitoring system.
The new onboard train communications network has been built around Icomera’s powerful X-Series platform and includes the first deployment of the mobile Internet connectivity expert’s new X6i SWAP application router.
Joining the same product family as the original award-winning Icomera X6, the X6i SWAP includes an in-built switch and Wi-Fi access points, bringing these two key components more directly into the X-Series connectivity platform. This means that all of the key components of the onboard train communications network are fully supported by Icomera’s remote central configuration tool, Vantage, for robust and simple asset management. In practice this will allow Chiltern Railways to remotely monitor and maintain the networks of all of the reconditioned vehicles and apply updates or emergency roll-backs across the fleet whenever the need arises.
Alan Riley, Head of On Train Service at Chiltern Railways, commented: “The benefits of our investment in new technology will be felt by customers over time. The new onboard train communications network solution, with its remote centralised management tools, will reduce the time that vehicles are out of action for maintenance and upgrade work in the future, ultimately minimising service disruptions for our passengers”.
About Chiltern Railways
Chiltern Railways is an innovative UK transport operator, owned by Deutsche Bahn AG and a part of Arriva. It runs services from London Marylebone, connecting the capital with Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick. Known for putting its customers first, it is one of the highest rated DfT franchised operators in the UK for passenger satisfaction according to the most recent National Passenger Survey conducted by Transport Focus.
