MINUTES OF COMMITTEE MEETING

 

RAIL TRANSIT VEHICLE INTERFACE STANDARDS COMMITTEE

 

March 14-15, 2000

 

Rancho Cucamonga, CA

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(NOTE: ATTACHMENTS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE WEBSITE VERSION OF THE MINUTES)

 

 

1. Attendance (See Attachment 1)

 

Note that a current list of members with addresses is provided as Attachment 2. Members should contact Patricia Gerdon of IEEE Standards (FAX 732 562-1571 or email  p.gerdon@ieee.org) with any corrections to this list. Please do not contact the Chair.

 

      Note:  Action Items assigned to committee members are  shown in bold italics.

 

 

2. Agenda (See Attachment 3)

 

 

3. Housekeeping

 

Minutes.  Minutes of the Newark NJ meeting (Nov. 9-10, 1999) were approved by the committee without changes on motion by Lou Sanders seconded by Dave Phelps.

 

Next Meeting.  It was agreed that the next meeting will be held July 11-12, 2000 at IEEE headquarters in Piscataway, New Jersey.  McGean will confirm arrangements with IEEE. The agenda will include affirmative and negative comments from balloting WG8 Environmental Standards and second line by line review of WG10 Battery Physical Standards, as well as an update on the status of HRI standards activity. The meeting following Piscataway will be held at Union Switch and Signal in Pittsburgh. Denny Pascoe will help with arrangements.

 

 

 

Internet. Our website is maintained by Tom Sullivan at:  http://www.tsd.org

Tom's site is directly linked to the IEEE site where password protected draft standards reside because of copyright concerns. The user name and password for accessing draft standards are "transit" and "railway". Working group leaders posting standards to the web should title them DS-P14XX.DOC  Email attachments to Tom for posting may now be sent in either Word 6.0/95 or Word 97. Tom Sullivan reported that our website is receiving 7000 "hits" a month and that they come from all over the world.

 

We also have an IEEE email mailing list:

stds-railtransit@ieee.org

 

The current list of members on the list is shown in Attachment 4. If you are not yet on the list, please sign on using the simple instructions provided in Attachment 4. If you have an incorrect address on the list please "unsubscribe" and if necessary re"subscribe" according to the instructions. You are the only one who can remove the incorrect address! We tend to use the IEEE email list sparingly and only for situations where we must rapidly contact members so you will not be overly burdened with email messages if you subscribe.

 

Progress Report.  Chair McGean announced that at this time five of our standards (IEEE 1473, 1474.1, 1475, 1477 and 1482.1)  have received final approvals and been published. In addition IEEE Standard 11,  Standard for Rotating Electric Machinery for Rail and Road Vehicles, with some help from our committee, was successfully revised and updated and has also been approved by RevCom. All six of these standards have been bundled into a Vehicular Technology Subscription which it will be possible to purchase online through IEEE. Two other standards (1476 Auxiliary Power and 1483 Software Verification)  have been successfully balloted and will be reviewed by RevCom the end of March. The status of all standards activities are provided in Attachment 5.

 

 

4. Coordination

 

FRA Regulations and Positive Train Control. (Report by Bill Petit) RSAC has two task forces at work on PTC, including one concerned with standards. Meetings have been held for the last two years, the latest in December. FRA has a notice of proposed rulemaking which is undergoing internal review by RSAC. After that it goes to OMB (Office of Management and Budget) and then it will be released for public comment. It is unlikely to become an actual regulation for at least a year. (It will be 49 CFR part 236 Subpart H) It is likely to require railroads to maintain their own safety plan per MIL STD 882C.  Jim Hoelscher's WG4 standard is likely to be ONE acceptable way of verifying software along with Cenelec and others. The U VA approach of Ted Giras will also be mentioned but probably not required. Risk analysis will be required if doing non-traditional train control implementations. Complete minutes of RSAC meetings are on the Safetran website, www.safetran.com 

 

ASME Developments. (Report by the Chair)  Stan Canjea's ASME Standards Committee on Rail Transit Vehicles held its fourth meeting in Orlando after the APTA annual meeting.  A second draft has been prepared based on the review in Sacramento.  Anyone wishing a copy of the second draft should contact Joseph Pang of the ASME at  pangj@asme.org and ask for the RT-1 draft standard. The draft is also on the ASME website which is linked to ours at www.tsd.org  The committee intends its next meeting to be in Sacramento April 13-14, 2000 when comments from the revised second draft will be reviewed. This standard is intended to harmonize US and European Light Rail Vehicle structural/crashworthiness requirements and anyone involved in this area is urged to review the standard which is moving forward rapidly.

 

APTA Standards Activities. (Report by Dave Phelps) APTA is now moving into developing rail transit standards (LRT and rapid rail as opposed to just commuter rail as was done by PRESS). The work will be modeled after the PRESS activity. A Rail Transit Standards Technical Working Group has been formed. It has four priority areas: Crashworthiness, Grade Crossings, Vehicle Maintenance and Inspection and Fixed Facility Maintenance and Inspection. APTA will utilize Stan Canjea's committee for the crashworthiness. The other standards work is expected to begin around midyear. (Report is provided as Attachment 6 ).

 

APTA Rolling Stock Technical Forum (Formerly APTA Rolling Stock Committee). (Report by Dave Phelps). Sessions for the June APTA rail meeting in Saint Louis this June are now being organized. The Forum is working with the Access Committee on intercar barriers. There will be a paper on the subject presented at the APTA rail meeting in June. The meeting will be June 10-15 at the Adams Mark Hotel in Saint Louis.

 

ITS/APTA Advanced Public Transit Systems Rail Subcommittee. (Report by Lou Sanders)  This group has been formed to identify ITS related development needs of the rail transit industry and further their development. It is headed by Tom Taylor of PB Systems (213 362 4769 FAX 213 362 3106, email taylorts@pbworld.com )  Or contact Lou Sanders of APTA (202 898 4086 FAX 202 898 4019, email lsanders@apta.com ) if you are interested. There is a growing recognition of the rail ITS interface. A Rail Stakeholders Forum is being instituted which will also be chaired by Tom Taylor.

OMG Website. Bob diSilvestro has organized a website to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of CORBA, DCOM, and the TCIP approach to message sets. The URL is www.ieee-omg.org  A user name and password are required which can be obtained from Bob diSilvestro at disilvestro_bob@adtranzna.com  Mike Barnett has generated some object models of rail transit vehicle equipment in connection with work he is doing for WG9 and asked if he can post them on our OMG website which we have okayed.

 

LonMark Interoperability Association. (report by Tom Sullivan)  LTK's Jim Lyke will represent NYCT as co-chair of the new transportation group with Gene Sansone. The LonMark website is www.lonmark.org.  WMATA is not using the Physical Layer requirements of IEEE 1473. The Chair discussed this with Karl Berger of Booz Allen, who is involved in the WMATA work.  Karl noted that the design is now in production and had begun too long ago to utilize IEEE 1473. Karl is joining WG9 and the Interoperability Task Force to coordinate future efforts with our IEEE work. Lance Cooper noted that WMATA's management is interested in pursuing new technology applications which will benefit the Authority. The Chief Engineer's office is considering forming an inter-agency New Technology Applications Team with members from WMATA, APTA, FTA and possibly members from our standards committee as well as other transit properties. This inter-agency group would be involved in testing and evaluation related to new technology and standards.

 

Transit Standards Consortium. (Paul Jamieson reporting) TSC awarded our committee its 1999 Outstanding Organization Achievement Award for distinguished contributions to the facilitation of the development, testing, and use of standards by the transit community. (Attachment 7 is letter announcing award). It was suggested Chair McGean see if the Transportation Research Board would be interested in displaying the award plaque.  TSC has tentatively agreed to cooperate with APTA in standards development activities. The joint agreement will recognize that engineering society Standards Development Organizations (such as our IEEE committee) should be used for standards whenever possible. TSC has also signed a cooperative agreement with the Society of Automotive Engineers. (The TSC Report is provided as Attachment 8)

 

IEEE Canada. A new IEEE Canada Standards Committee has been formed to promote IEEE-SA positions at the Canadian national level with organizations such as the Canadian National Committee of the IEC (CNC/IEC), the Standards Council of Canada, and the Canadian Electricity Association. The committee will work to obtain acceptance of IEEE standards by Canadian regulators and strengthen Canadian participation in IEEE standards work. Canadians are urged to get involved.  For more information contact Mary Lynne Nielsen at m.nielsen@ieee.org or call 732 562 3827.

 

 

5.  Other Business

 

Metrication.  The Chair reported that this year IEEE moved into Stage III of its metrication policy which means that English units are no longer placed in parenthesis in standards. English units may be used in footnotes or informative annexes, and exceptions are allowed for AWG wire sizes and inch based standards for fasteners. The Plan does not require metric products to be substituted for inch-based products. Whether the committee should seek an exemption was discussed at length. A motion was made by Chuck Elms and seconded by Rob McHugh to accept the Stage III policy without asking for any exceptions. It passed with three negative votes and one abstention, receiving a better than 75% affirmation.

 

NiCad Battery Performance Standard.  Alex Sinyak assisted by Claude Gabriel proposed a new standard in this area. Alex has agreed to chair the working group with assistance from Claude. This standard fills the gap between IEEE 1476, Auxiliary Power and Stan Kwa's physical battery standard. Dave Phelps will give Alex a list of persons on the PRESS battery working group to add to his mailing list. The title, purpose and scope (see Attachment 9) were reviewed by the committee. The following directions were received from the committee:

 

1)      Add the word "Electrical" in the title before the word "Sizing"

2)      Use the phrase "rail passenger vehicles" throughout in place of "rail passenger cars", "passenger rail cars" etc.

3)      In the scope, remove the words "qualification or testing" so that the working group can decide whether or not to include these areas later without needing to request a PAR change if they are not considered.

4)      Change the language throughout to be consistent with a recommended practice rather than a mandatory standard. E.g. change the word "prescribes" to "provides".

5)      Change "diesel or gasoline" in the scope to "internal combustion".

 

Dave Phelps moved and Arun Virginkar seconded a motion to accept the title, purpose and scope with the above modifications and authorize Alex Sinyak to create a new Working Group 13 to submit a PAR to IEEE for this standard. The committee approved the motion unanimously. Paul Jamieson suggested that a definition of sizing would be needed.

 

 

 

 

IEEE 16 Standard (New WG11) . (Report by Jim Dietz) The PAR has been submitted for approval by NesCom the end of March. The next meeting will be March 22 at APTA in Washington DC starting at 10AM. To get involved contact Jim Dietz at 215 542 0700, FAX 215 542 7676 email jdietz@ltk.com. (Note: Working Group 11 is to define what we mean by galvanic isolation as part of the WG11 motor control  standard and is also to define Dielectric Requirements which were deleted from Chuck Elms WG8 standard. The first two paragraphs of 4.3 in the WG8 standard covering voltage transients were also deleted and should be covered by IEEE16. Also, WG11 needs to advise the full committee whether it will include EMI radiation in its standard.)

 

Funding for Protocol Implementation. No new information on this topic. WG1, Communications Protocols, has recommended a Gateway/TCN Demonstration Project as being desirable to reduce the P1473 Standard to practice. The project would provide evidence that the TCN standard as written is sufficient and complete by developing a North American implementation, and would also develop the gateway between TCN and Echelon needed to make P1473 a reality. A "Consortium for Communications Protocol Implementation" has been formed and a proposal submitted to the FTA Joint Partnership Program in the Consortium's name. FTA has advised the proposal was highly rated but funding remains a problem, since the JPP program is not directly funded.  FTA persons involved in the Joint Partnership Program include Tony Yen (202 366-0264, Don Durkee (202 366-0942) and Ed Thomas (202 366-0264). While Tom McGean has served as acting consortium coordinator, Bombardier has tentatively agreed to take over that responsibility.

 

Highway Rail Intersection (Possible New WG14).  (Bill Petit reporting)  It was noted that it is still being decided whether our committee will be tasked with the wayside, intelligent controller interface standard. Dave Phelps moved that the provisional working group be authorized to continue its activities and draft a PAR. The motion was seconded by Ron Lawrence and passed unanimously. Bill Petit will head this provisional working group.

 

Mystery EMI Standard.   We were advised by IEEE that a PAR for EMI for rail transit ahs been withdrawn, but when we inquired no one knew anything about it.  It was noted that in the late 1970's, the Transportation Systems Center in Boston put together a group which developed recommended practices in this area. Ron Kangas and/or Lou Frascoe might know about it. Tom McGean agreed to check with Ron.

 

 

 

Information Dissemination.  Lou Sanders noted that TCRP reports are available without charge through the web. Locate the TCRP dissemination website by going to www.apta.com and then hitting the TCRP button. This way you will be able to use the APTA search feature. In the next few months all TCRP reports will be available in this way. Lou also noted that TCRP has chosen this project (TCRP G4 and TCRP G4-A to develop rail transit vehicle interface standards) to be the showpiece for a major advertising campaign using publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. We are all to be congratulated that this effort in which we are involved is considered one of the most successful TCRP projects. Also, in large measure because of our success, TCRP has entered into a cooperative project with the Transportation Test Center in Pueblo to use that facility for joint mainline railroad/transit studies including broken rail detection.

 

IEEE Standards Process.  The most up to date list of training information for standards developers and information on the IEEE standards process is found at http://standards.ieee.org/faqs/ltpres.html  Presentations address Project Authorization Requests, Balloting, etc. A style template can be downloaded from http://standards.ieee.org/resources/spasystem/index/html

 

IEEE now is permitting sponsors to indicate their desire to conduct ballots using email and the worldwide web. The committee asked Chair McGean to investigate use of electronic ballots for those standards not yet in the ballot process.

 

 

6.       Working Group Reports

(To facilitate followup by working group leaders activities have been organized by working   group even though the agenda did not follow this approach  at the actual meeting).

 

Definitions. Paul Jamieson Chair. A policy statement drafted by the Chair to reflect the sense of the committee on definitions is given below:

 

It is committee policy to use IEEE Dictionary definitions if at all possible. Further, once any definition has been balloted and accepted for use in any standard sponsored by the IEEE Rail Transit Vehicle Interface Standards Committee it shall be binding for all other standards sponsored by the committee unless it can be shown to be clearly inappropriate. If neither the IEEE Dictionary nor a RTVISC balloted standard provides a suitable definition, then the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Lexicon should be consulted for a suitable definition.. Next, standards sponsored by the ASME Rail Transit Standards Committee should be consulted. Definitions which have been  balloted and accepted for any standard sponsored by the ASME Rail Transit Standards Committee shall be also binding for all IEEE RTVISC standards unless there is a different existing IEEE definition or they  can be shown to be clearly inapplicable.  If none of these sources produce a suitable definition,  the  TRB Glossary should be consulted .  It should be noted that  ASME and  TRB Glossary definitions are not presently IEEE definitions. Thus, they should be provided in the definitions section of the IEEE standard so they can be balloted and adopted as an IEEE definition. Only when all of the above approaches has failed should a working group coin its own original definition. Since it is intended that all working groups of both IEEE RTVISC and ASME RTSC use common definitions,  Working group chairs should be careful when reviewing standards prepared by other working groups, to be sure the other group's definitions will be suitable for their standard also. Paul Jamieson chairs the Definitions working group for both the IEEE RTVISC and the ASME RTSC and maintains a database with all definitions which can be downloaded from our website at  www.tsd.org.

 

WG1 (P1473) Communications Protocols on Trains, Bob Anderson Chair. The WG1 standard IEEE 1473 has been published.

 

WG2 (P1474.1) Communications Based Train Control, Alan Rumsey, Chair  The P1474.1 standard has been published. A meeting of WG2 was held February 18, 2000 to discuss the next step. The following conclusions were reached:

 

1) Environmental Conditions need to be developed to cover the wayside equipment. Chuck Elms said he would be unable to lead this effort although he would work on it. Denny Pascoe agreed to see if Harold Gillen would be able to head this effort.

 

2) A standard is needed for the graphical user interface. Alan Rumsey agreed to lead this effort and the committee authorized him to prepare a PAR for its review.

 

3) Highway Grade Crossing requirements for CBTC systems requires further work. A PAR may not be needed as this may be incorporated into the existing CBTC standard when it is revised. Vic Grapone has agreed to head this effort which will be done by a new Working Group 2A.

 

4) WG2 would like to include Automated Driverless Operation the next time the standard is revised. McGean noted this would need to be closely coordinated with the ASCE Automated People Mover Standards Committee. The full committee deferred a decision in this area.

 

5) WG2 decided it was not ready to develop interoperability interface standards.

 

The next meeting of WG2 will be April 27th at US&S in Pittsburgh. Attachment 10  is the complete WG2 report.    

                

WG3 (P1482) Rail Vehicle Monitoring and Diagnostic Systems, Linda Sue Boehmer,  The Event Recorder standard has been published. Activity to reactivate the maintenance and diagnostics effort is being considered. Linda Sue Boehmer will hold a WG meeting between now and July and will also see whether New Jersey Transit can help support this effort. Lou Sanders noted there are persons on the APTA Rail Transit Committee who could perhaps be asked to help. Dave Phelps and Lou Sanders will attempt to locate persons to serve on this working group.  Attachment 11 is the WG3 report.

 

WG4 (P1483) Safety Standards for Software Systems, Jim Hoelscher,  This standard has been submitted for RevCom approval the end of this month.

 

WG5 (P1475) VOBC/Propulsion Controller/Motor/Brake, Dave Phelps, Chair. The WG5 standard IEEE 1475 has been published. WG5 is now helping WG9 with identifying propulsion, braking and master control interface data elements.

 

WG6 (P1476) Auxiliary Power Systems, Claude Gabriel, Chair This standard has been submitted for RevCom approval the end of this month.

 

WG7 P1477) Vehicle Passenger Information Standards, Lance Cooper, Chair  The standard has been published as an IEEE standard.

 

WG8 (P1478) Environmental Standards for Rail Transit Equipment, Chuck Elms, Chair. Line by Line review was undertaken at this meeting. The following actions are noted:

 

·        Chuck Elms to advise McGean which sections are taken from copyrighted documents and McGean is to follow up with IEEE staff on needed approvals.

 

·        In Section 4.1.4 the newer 1997 AREMA text was accepted by the Committee.

 

·        In Section 4.1.5 the newer 1997 AREMA text was accepted by the committee.

 

·        In EMI the committee was concerned the requirements might not be severe enough as they are much less than Cenelec. But others thought Cenelec was too severe. It was decided that Section 4.1.6 on EMI would be deleted. Lou Sanders will contact Lou Frasco and with the help of Denny Pascoe and Marcos Albuquerque will develop a set of strawman EMI requirements. One of them will submit these EMI comments as an affirmative comment to the WG8 ballot. It was moved by Paul Jamieson, seconded by Linda Sue Boehmer and unanimously agreed by the committee that this EMI affirmative comment would be taken up at the next meeting and the consensus EMI position reballoted as a substantive change to the WG8 standard.

 

·        It was decided that Section 4.1.7 on Dielectric Requirements should be deleted and that Jim Dietz WG11 standard should take up this matter.

 

·        Section 4.1.8 should provide specific test criteria. Lou Sanders is to provide Elms the ATCS standard's requirements. References to snow/ice melting and cleaning solutions should be deleted and the actual tests in the ATCS (3.2.5 through 3.2.8) should be cited.

 

·        In section 4.2 the flake size should be deleted. During the ballot comments should be provided about a good way to specify snow density.

 

·        The first two paragraphs of 4.3 should be removed and placed in IEEE16. Linda Sue will advise Jim Dietz of this.

 

·        Ambient temperature is to be defined as the temperature at which a test chamber shall be maintained while testing equipment.

 

Linda Sue Boehmer moved and Claude Gabriel seconded that with the above changes and others noted in the draft provided as Attachment 12 to these minutes, the WG8 standard be submitted to ballot. This motion passed unanimously. Chuck Elms will provide Tom the version of the standard to place in the minutes and a final version with all agreed upon changes to be balloted and McGean will arrange the ballot.

 

WG9 Transit Communications Interface Profiles for Rail Transit Systems, Rob McHugh.  The last meeting was held at WMATA. There are now 61 persons on the working group mailing list.  The Interoperability Task Force has developed a strategy to identify critical data elements for basic operating unit interoperability. The schedule is to have an Excel database of these elements available for discussion at a meeting to be held at STV in Philadelphia on May 1, 2000. It is desired to have a joint WG9 ITF meeting and Rob McHugh will see if he can schedule a WG9 meeting for the same date.

 

WG10 Battery Standard, Stanley Kwa, Chair.  A line by line review of the draft standard was conducted. The following changes were suggested by the committee

 

1)      Either cite IEC 60623 or reproduce material and footnote but do not mix the two approaches.

2)      Explain what is meant by "uncoding".

3)      See if Table 1 can be refined and pared back to fewer options.

4)      The Committee discussed whether this should be a recommended practice rather than a standard and decided this decision should be deferred until Table 1 is revised and more insight is available on the kind of standard being generated.

5)      It should be noted in Figure 1 that the blocks are cells. It should also note this is a 'Top View".

6)      With regard to Section 4.3, the working group was asked to review the PRESS battery standard for its recommendations on hardware.

7)      The committee asked the working group to try to standardize on battery posts/connections or at least have suggested or recommended practices in this area. Some progress on the interface of the battery with the car cable terminals is needed.

8)      The committee suggested Sections 5.0 and 5.1 be deleted.

9)      The committee suggested that section 6 be coordinated with Alex Sinyak's  WG13. Also the committee asked the working group to consider the IEEE 1475 experience placing 'who does what' material in an informative annex. It might be possible to put explanatory words in the introduction and concrete recommendations in an informative annex. If specific sizing details are needed they should remain in Section 6.0.

10)  In Section 7.0, if there are design criteria for battery boxes they should be cited. State that all batteries shall be located in a single compartment. Clean out the "fluff" in this section.

11)  Whether to standardize the tray arrangement should be decided by the working group based on the final form of Table 1.

12)  Change "watertight cover" to "flash proof cover" and check NEMA to see if there is an appropriate enclosure reference.

13)  For 7.1, Dave Phelps will advise Stan Kwa on NFPA 130 words concerning batteries.

14)  Move words about aluminum to paragraph 3 of 7.0.

15)  For 7.2, delete requirement for a filter due to danger of hydrogen buildup.

16)  Combine second sentence of 7.1 with 7.3 and change 7.3 title to "Restraint". Then combine this section with 7.4.

 

 The working group was asked to make the above changes and resubmit the standard to the next meeting to be held in Piscataway, New Jersey.

 

WG12 Software Documentation Standard , Paul Jamieson, Chair. The PAR has been approved. A fourth meeting was held at PB Transit and Rail Systems in Newark January 12-13 and a fifth meeting is scheduled to be held at New Jersey Transit in Newark on April 5-6, 2000. A report is provided as Attachment 13.

 

 

 

 

7.      Special Thanks

 

Special thanks are due to Safetran Systems for providing the excellent meeting facilities, hosting refreshments and lunch for both days, and conducting highly informative tours of the operations area and the railroad system. In particular we would like to thank Bill Petit for coordinating everything, Richard Case, Frank Munoz and Cheryl LaVella for the operations tour, John Schulz and Dave Wright for the railroad tour, and Dolores Brenneman for help with meeting arrangements and support.

 

We also would like to thank Safetran Systems, Union Switch and Signal, Alstom Signaling and Adtranz for hosting an excellent dinner following the meeting on Tuesday.

 

8.    Adjournment

 

The meeting was adjourned at 3:30PM on March 15th, 2000.