Southern Trains GPS Problems

[dastardly]

I guess it's slightly on topic, but Southern Railway is in the news with its new trains.

AIUI, they use GPS to tell the onboard computer which station they're standing at, so that when they run long trains into short platforms and the rear carriages are 'hanging out the back', the computer decides how many doors can be be made available to open, according to a pre-programmed list. This is called Selective Door Opening.

It really is giving them problems, and stories abound of 40 minute delays at some stations whilst they try to get the doors open. I suspect that it's the computer which is at fault rather than the GPS, as there have been numerous problems with them.

However the route from Brighton to Victoria is very GPS unfriendly, with many steep cuttings and frequent long tunnels. You really don't get to see much sky. (On the occassions that I've tried to use GPS in a train cab it's been hopeless).

Anybody know any more ?

John
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[Dave]

Perhaps the on-board computer that is receiving the GPS signals thinks the last couple of carriages are on the nearest A road or Motorway ?

Personally I wouldn't have thought GPS would be a good technology for this. I haven't heard of the story or read it, but sensors on the wheels or undercarriage of the carriages would be a much better choice if they don't want to use a guard or driver to make the decision.

I haven't travelled (luckily) on South West Trains for quite some time now, but I know there were several stations where you had to get off of the front 5 coaches of a 10 coach train because platforms weren't long enough (on the Waterloo to Weymouth line).

[dastardly]

[geraint]

Another option would be to fit an RFID device at each station. The train could then inrterrogate the station to ask "which station are you?". The station could then reply, and the onboard computer then decide which doors to open. Obviously, the onboard computer would have to know how long the train was and how long the station was.

Probably cheaper to fit GPS though, as no need to fit RFID transponders in each station.
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Geraint

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