Improvments in Railway Communication via GSM-R

In this paper we identify several shortcomings in GSM-R use for high-speed trains. Especially cell reselection and handover last too long. If they are combined with Group Receive Mode this causes additional problems. One single solution can help to cope with them. If handover and cell reselection are aided by location information they can be accelerated. Three strategies how to derive location information in railway environment are briefly explained. The location information is taken to determine the next serving cell. This shortens preparation time for cell reselection significantly. Railway environment makes it easy to estimate the location. In the outlook we show how to transform the results given here to new applications for area-wide mobile communication systems