Development of autonomous decentralized ATC system

This paper introduces an autonomous decentralized ATC (Automatic Train Control device) system developed by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). In the current ATC, the central ATC logic device calculates permissive speed of each blocking section and controls speed of all trains. On the other hand, in the autonomous decentralized ATC, the central logic system calculates the position at which each train should stop, and sends the information on that position to respective train. On each train, the on-board equipment calculates an appropriate braking pattern according to the information and controls its speed, that is, in the new system, the equipments on each train autonomously calculate permissive speed of each train. By this special feature, we can achieve ideal speed control of each train, making full use of its performance for acceleration and deceleration, which in turn allows high-density train operations.