PTC—it’s just what you’d expect from Union Switch & Signal, the industry’s leader in rail safety, reliability, efficiency and dispatching solutions since 1881. While our technologies continue to advance, our mission remains the same—to make your rail network safer, more reliable, and more productive than ever before. Discover how we can keep your business on track.
Central Office
PTC's Central Office delivers dependable operational control through its two modular components:
The US&S CAD is the recognized benchmark for CAD systems from the industry's most experienced CAD system vendor. This next-generation dispatching platform, which currently controls many of the nation's leading railroad networks, provides centralized command and control management of your rail network's traffic and work crews. Its high availability hardware architecture features built-in redundancy and automatic failover for all critical equipment and data paths.
The Office Safety Server (OSS) is the linchpin for vitality of our PTC system. Drawing from US&S's MicroLok II vital architecture, the OSS manages the limits of authorities given to each train by dynamically monitoring the real-time locations of all trains operating on your network. It then converts the actual train's location within a zone to 'virtual' track circuit occupancies. A versioncontrolled topographical representation of all tracks in your DTC territories is managed using virtual blocks.
PTC Cab
The PTC Cab enforces the limits of authority generated and transmitted individually to each locomotive by the central office, assuring the safe movement of trains within the network. The on-board equipment includes a locomotive display unit that serves as the operator’s interface, and the On-Board Computer (OBC), which is built on the US&S MicroCab platform, a vital platform that has been rigorously validated to industry standards.
Communications
PTC wireless digital radio platform transmits information between the central office and the locomotive. The platform is based upon industry-standard protocols, assuring interoperability with current and emerging open standards. Spare data network capacity can convey a variety of additional applications beyond PTC control.
Optional Wayside Configuration
The US&S PTC system is a complete end-to-end solution that can successfully integrate a broad range of wayside devices including switch monitoring and rail integrity equipment.
Flexible Design and Implementation
The US&S PTC solution employs a dynamic ‘open architecture’ that is both flexible in its modular design and easily adaptable to your specifications and systems. Our PTC solution is designed to be interoperable with many of your existing systems. The US&S PTC module can be adapted to your existing CAD system, allowing it to work with our vital solution. On the other hand, your requirements may call for the additional build-out or continued maintenance of a wayside controller system. In that regard, US&S PTC can interface with any number of wayside devices. As a result, vital data, from the position of local switches to track integrity, can be instantly captured and transmitted wirelessly to the Office and on to the On-Board Computer (OBC). Finally our entire solution is completely scalable, allowing future extensions or modifications as your traffic needs change.
