OREANDA-NEWS. Huawei today announced that it will partner with Siemens Convergence Creators to deploy South Africa’s first Global System for Mobile Communication – Railway (GSM-R) solution for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).

Since early 2013, Huawei has been working with PRASA to deploy its GSM-R solution across PRASA’s 1200-km railway network that covers three main areas including Cape Town, Durban and Gauteng. Huawei’s GSM-R solution combined with Siemens CVC’s dispatching and voice recording system will provide PRASA with an end-to-end solution that will enhance transportation efficiency and customer service. The completion of this railway will be pivotal for future railway network planning in South Africa and its neighboring countries.

“Huawei and Siemens Convergence Creators have cooperated for many years in the fields of GSM-R and eLTE development, with dispatching and voice recording systems a crucial part of Huawei’s GSM-R solution. Due to high performance indicators demonstrated by the solution in our integration labs, we are confident that PRASA will benefit greatly from the design offered by Huawei and Siemens Convergence Creators,” said David Xu, General Manager, Huawei Enterprise Wireless Domain.

"We are proud to work with Huawei to enhance our competitiveness in the railway critical communications industry,” said Bernard Payer, Head of Infrastructure and Security Business, Siemens Convergence Creators. “The jointly developed GSM-R solution used in South Africa is cost-effective and seamlessly combines the latest technologies to enhance efficiency and customer service across railway networks, enabling us to easily deploy the solution across the entire African continent.”

In South Africa, the Department of Transport operates the most developed railway network in Africa. It is committed to digitizing its network to attract more passengers and provide more efficient, comfortable and convenience services. To enable this, PRASA selected Huawei and Siemens Convergence Creators’ GSM-R solution as it supports LTE evolution and provides support across the following three key areas:

Enables PRASA’s control centers to conveniently manage its front line staff and assets through a Siemens Convergence Creator train dispatcher system, which uses converged voice communication.

Enhances on-board communications as the GSM-R solution features voice recording technology, which improves the post-incident analysis of railway accidents.

Helps railway operators communicate during long-distance journeys as the GSM-R solution features a real-time dispatching capability.

As the first European Train Control System Level 2 (ETCS L2) compliant control system in Africa, the GSM-R-enabled railway system is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015.