SEPTA Railroad Division Control Center
TYLin designed a state-of-the-art Railroad Division Control Center, centralized traffic control system, and traction power control system for SEPTA.
The relationship between the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) and the TYLin team began over 20 years ago with the design and implementation assistance for their commuter rail's new centralized traffic control (CTC) system, which is still in use today and has continued uninterrupted since its launch.
SEPTA provides daily, around-the-clock service to the City of Philadelphia and its five surrounding counties and connects to the neighboring states of Delaware and New Jersey. From its 15 maintenance yards, it supports 16 commuter railroad lines, a subway system, a light rail high-speed line, an elevated rail line, and eight subway-surface trolley lines.
Along with the CTC, TYLin has also served as the Prime Consultant for the design of SEPTA's state-of-the-art Railroad Division Control Center (RRDCC) and a traction power control (Power SCADA) system. Prompting this undertaking was SEPTA's desire to retire field towers and centralize their operation into a multimodal control operation.
An engineering study examined existing conditions, defined future operations, and considered a future expansion of the rail territory. The study included a conceptual design to address the following key areas:
- Evaluation of alternative sites for a new RRDCC facility, including the location of an Emergency Backup Control Center
- Development of functional requirements for the CTC and Power SCADA systems
- Integration approaches of the existing wayside equipment with the centralized operation
- Communications requirements of the RRDCC, including an extension to an alternate path routing of SEPTA's fiber-optic network to support the RRDCC operations
- An Integrated Communications Switch (ICS) to consolidate all telephone, radio, public address, and visual messaging systems onto a common dispatching interface
Our team continued to work with SEPTA's engineering staff to design the RRDCC theater layout, considering the CTC and Power SCADA system requirements and staffing solutions.