MINUTES OF COMMITTEE MEETING

Note that a current list of members with email addresses is provided as Attachment 1. Members should contact Patricia Gerdon of IEEE Standards (FAX 732 562-1571 or email p.gerdon@ieee.org) with any corrections to this list or to their conventional address, phone or fax. Please do not contact the Chair. Since we are now doing electronic balloting it is essential Tricia Gerdon have your current email address.

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

2. Agenda

The agenda for the meeting was as follows:

February 12

8:30-9AM Continental Breakfast

9AM-9:05AM Introductions

9:05-9:50 AM Housekeeping

Minutes of Pittsburgh meeting and request for changes

Dinner & Tour Logistics

Meeting time and place, next meeting

Brief Progress Report from Chair

Announcement: IEEE Now USNC IEC TC9 TAG

Administrator

Website - Tom Sullivan

Electronic Balloting & PDF Files - Chair

Dissemination of RTVISC Standards - Lou Sanders

10 Minute Break

10-10:45AM Coordination

New APTA standards initiatives - Dave Phelps

Presentation to APTA Rail Transit Standards Policy

Committee - Paul Jamieson

LonMark Interoperability Assoc. - Tom Sullivan

FRA & Positive Train Control - Joe Heimann

FRA Event Recorder NPRM - Linda Sue Boehmer

ASME Rail Standards (& HVAC Proposal) - Chair

ITS APTS Committee - Lou Sanders

10:45 - 11:15AM Proposed Catenary Standard - Peter Bartek

11:15AM - Noon Adtranz Train to Wayside Communication - Radio Link and

NJT Train Diagnostic System - Rene Steiner (Adtranz Switzerland)

Noon - 1PM Lunch (brought in)

1 - 1:45PM AREMA Wireless Communications Task Force - Ed Kemp

1:45-2PM Policy Decision on Standard for Non-Safety Critical Train & Wayside Data Protocol

2:2:30 PM WG9 Progress Report

(Includes discussion of Data Element Policy)

2:30-3:15PM WG2B CBTC Graphical User Interface

WG3 Maintenance & Diagnostics

WG11 Electrical/Electronic Control

WG13 NiCad Battery Performance

WG14 HRI

15 minute break

3:30 -5PM WG12 Software Documentation Status Report - Paul Jamieson

5:30PM Bus leaves Sofitel Hotel for tour

6-6:45 PM Tour of Metromover and Metrorail Control Center

7PM Dinner at Local Restaurant (Dutch treat)

Feb. 13^th

8-8:30AM Continental Breakfast Served

8:30AM -12 noon Final Line by Line Review of WG10 Battery Standard - Stan Kwa

12noon - 1PM Lunch (On your Own)

1PM - 4PM Complete Line by Line Review of WG10

3. Housekeeping

Minutes. Minutes of the Pittsburgh PA meeting (October 24-25, 2000 were approved by the committee with the following changes on motion of Linda Sue Boehmer seconded by Paul Jamieson. Requested by Jeff Mora via email: On page 5, 3^rd paragaph correct name is Dr. Aviva Brecher (Volpe Center) Requested by Tom Sullivan: Replace the LonMark Interoperability report on Page 3 with the following:

LonMark Interoperability Association (report by Tom Sullivan) - Gene Sansone of NYC Transit and Tom Sullivan co-chair the "Transportation Task Group" of the LIA. Gene has delegated his day to day work with LIA to Jim Lyke of LTK. LIA is reaching closure on the key propulsion profile and will be harmonized with IEEE 1475. Discussions are ongoing with Elevator groups to develop common LonMark profiles for doors. Work on GPS profiles is also moving forward. SAE has signed a memo to cooperate with the Transit Standards Consortium and a similar MOU between TSC and LIA is expected shortly. The LonMark website is www.lonmark.org.

Next Meeting. It was agreed that the next meeting will be held June 4-5, 2001 at New York City Transit. In the event NYCT should have a scheduling problem Metro North was offered as a backup. The agenda will include resolution of results from ballot of WG10 Battery Physical Standards and initial committee review of WG13 NiCad Battery Standard..

Electronic Balloting. Sta Kwa's battery standard will be balloted electronically. This will be our first electronic ballot. Please be sure the IEEE has your correct email address. IEEE requires that the standard be posted on their website in PDF format. It was agreed that Stan Kwa would send the final Word version ready to ballot to Tom McGean for final review and after Stan OK's any McGean changes, it will be sent to IEEE for review by the IEEE Editor. After the IEEE edit, Stan will then send the Word file to Dave Phelps and Chuck Elms who will each convert it to PDF format and send the converted file back to Stan. Stan will download and review/approve the PDF version and then send one of them to IEEE to put on their website.

Dave Phelps noted that "Mindit" will monitor the URL of your choosing and send you notice of any changes at that website. The Mindit URL is http://mindit.netmind.com/

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.

We also have an IEEE email mailing list: stds-railtransit@ieee.org

The current list of members on the list is shown in Attachment 2. If you are not yet on the list, please send an email message to majordomo@majordomo.ieee.org The subject line should be "Subscribe" leave "Copies" blank. The main message should say only "subscribe stds-railtransit" followed by your email address. Do not put anything else in the message. This will add you to the address list to automatically receive committee announcements. If your email address is on the list but is not correct do the following. Send an email message to majordomo@majordomo.ieee.org The subject line should be "Change Subscribe" Leave "Copies" blank. The message should have two lines. The first line should say "unsubscribe stds-railtransit" followed by the incorrect email address. The second line should say "subscribe stds-railtransit" followed by the correct email address. Only you can maintain your address correct in this system which is self maintaining. 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.

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

Progress Report by Chair. Chair McGean announced that at this time eight of our standards (IEEE 1473, 1474.1, 1475, 1476, 1477, 1478, 1482.1 and 1483) have received final approvals. The committee congratulated Chuck Elms on shepherding IEEE 1478 through to final approval. In addition IEEE Standard 11, Standard for Rotating Electric Machinery for Rail and Road Vehicles, with some help from our committee, has also been published. We have thus finished all eight standards activities initiated when the committee was formed in 1996. However, since that time, committee members have proposed and received IEEE approval to undertake an additional eight new standards activities, so our level of activity remains undiminished despite all of these published standards. The status of all standards activities are provided in Attachments 3 and 4.

4. Coordination

New APTA Standards Initiatives. (Report by Dave Phelps) APTA standards efforts are being launched in five areas. ASME will address Vehicle Crashworthiness. The other four areas are grade crossings, vehicle maintenance and inspection, fixed facility maintenance and operating standards. The efforts have been launched and are now underway. Close coordination with IEEE and ASME efforts is being maintained and in general, when a proposed standard is a design activity, the work will be done by an engineering society while operations and maintenance type standards will be done by APTA. Paul Jamieson gave a presentation on the IEEE and ASME standards work to the APTA Standards Steering Committee and it was well received. The committee appreciates our IEEE/ASME work and approves of it. Plans are underway to submit a proposal for 50/50 APTA/FTA cost sharing to support our engineering society standards activity in 2002 when TCRP funding is expected to end. Paul Jamieson ran through his presentation to the APTA Standards Steering Committee. (See Attachment 5) He stressed the importance of quantifying benefits for our new standards and documenting where they are being used. It would be appreciated if members would email Chair McGean at t.j.mcgean@ieee.org of instances they observe where our IEEE standards are being cited.

LonMark Interoperability Association. (report by Tom Sullivan) The LIA met last November in Florida. Their propulsion/braking work is on hold as they wait for WG9 (IEEE P1544) to make its decisions on propulsion and braking data elements.

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.

USNC TAG Administrator. It has been arranged with the USNC that the IEEE will be the TAG Administrator for the USNC TAG for IEC TC9 - Electric Railway Equipment. Tricia Gerdon of IEEE who very competently administers our committee will be the staff contact who will fulfill the Administrator's responsibilities. This is expected to greatly improve our communications with IEC TC9 which have been somewhat ragged in the past.

FRA Regulations and Positive Train Control. (Report by Bob Heggestad)

The proposed NPRM for use of processor based systems has still not been released for public comment. The new administration has all new regulations on hold now so it will be late spring at the earliest before anything is released. Complete minutes of RSAC meetings are on the Safetran website, www.safetran.com

ASME Developments. (Report by Tom McGean) The next meeting is March 21-23 in Atlanta where comments from the fourth Light Rail Crashworthiness draft will be reviewed by the committee. The LRV Crashworthiness draft is on the ASME website which is linked to ours at www.tsd.org. The committee is also going to prepare structural standards for rapid railcars, at the request of APTA. Keith Falk will chair this new standards working group. NYCT has requested a car air conditioning standard be undertaken and discussions are now underway as to whether to locate it within ASME or in ASHRAE. It appears it will be done under the aegis of ASHRAE. Chair McGean was asked if ASHRAE is a consensus standards group and agreed to investigate this. Anyone interested in the HVAC standard should email Tom McGean at t.j.mcgean@ieee.org as the working group is now being formed.

FRA Event Recorders. Chair McGean sent a letter to the FRA suggesting their planned NPRM for event recorders take note of IEEE 1482.1. McGean has had no response to his letter and the NPRM has not yet been publicly released.

APTA Rolling Stock Technical Forum (Formerly APTA Rolling Stock Committee). (Report by Dave Phelps). This group is working on 2 workshop sessions for the Boston APTA conference. They have agreed to act as a resource for standards, both technically and in identifying potential areas where new standards are needed.

ITS/APTA Advanced Public Transit Systems Rail Subcommittee. (Report by Lou Sanders) John Collins has left ITS America and the emphasis on highway as opposed to transit areas seems to have increased. APTA is working to correct this. The new ITS architecture regulations are on hold due to the administration change. Yehuda Gross is now at DOT is working with FTA and APTA on an ITS implementation program which certainly has implications for standards and for our IEEE committee. Tom Taylor has resigned as APTS Rail Chair and a new Chair is needed. Contact Lou Sanders of APTA (202 898 4086 FAX 202 898 4019, email lsanders@apta.com ) if interested.

It was noted that a new universal phone number (511) is being established for national passenger transit information. On February 23, the APTA Power, Signal & Communications Technical Forum will be meeting at APTA to renew its emphasis in the signal and communications area.

5. Other Business

Overhead Contact System (OCS) Standards. Peter Bartek discussed the need for an IEEE standard to govern overhead contact systems for light rail transit. An exploratory meeting held in Philadelphia a year ago attracted 80 persons so interest is high. In the past five years, FTA has allocated the major portion of funding for new starts to LRT systems. This year alone 85.9 track miles of LRT and streetcar systems will be built and in the next five years 700 track miles of LRT and streetcar systems will be built. Standards should cover power, communications, and vehicle pickup as related to OCS systems. There is a need to standardize on OCS design methods, parameters, sectionalizing techniques, OCS terminology, pantograph widths and shape, system height, messenger tensions, contact wire tensions, material specifications, training, operations and maintenance practices, etc. There is also a need to coordinate US and European practices which now differ. The proposed activity would concentrate on light rail rather than commuter or high speed electrified rail. The RTVISC advised Peter to coordinate with the APTA Power, Signal and Communications Technical Forum (meeting February 23^rd in Washington DC at APTA offices) and the APTA Fixed Facilities Standards Committee meeting this Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh. The latter committee will be involved in training and maintenance of fixed structures and would be interested in those aspects of OCS standards. It was also noted there may be some IEEE standards governing line hardware and some AREMA standards may also apply. The following motion was moved, seconded and carried: "Subject to concurrence of the APTA Fixed Facilities Standards Committee and the APTA Power, Signaling and Communications Technical Forum, Peter Bartek and Tom McGean were authorized to convene an IEEE OCS Task Force to develop a proposal for OCS standards activity to be presented at our June meeting."

Information Dissemination. All eight of our published standards (including IEEE 11) have been bundled into a Vehicular Technology Standards Subscription which it will be possible to purchase online through IEEE. This subscription gives you a license for online access to any of these standards at no extra charge for the period of one year including the right to download and print them for your own use. The license fee ranges from $150/year for a single user to $1500 a year for an entire "enterprise". Go to http://standards.ieee.org/catalog/olis/licenses/licenses.html to obtain a license. In addition, copies of all the standards developed to date under the TCRP G-4 program have been purchased and will be distributed in the near future to transit agencies and committee members.

Non-Safety Critical Train/Wayside Communications. The Committee heard a thorough presentation by Rene Steiner of Adtranz Switzerland on the MITRAC Transit Diagnostic System to be used with the New Jersey Comet cars. This diagnostic system supports cars, trainsets and stand alone subsystems. Mr. Steiner also explained the Adtranz Train to Wayside Communication - Radio Link (DAVINCI, Data via Internet). A TCN to HTTP Gateway converts TCN based oncar information to internet protocol using JAVA. Messages are sent to or from the car by a radio link to a ground station where they are then sent out over the internet or intranet. The TCN/HTTP gateway is a proprietary Adtranz product. Otherwise the system is open. Security depends on conventional internet security devices. Rene Steiner's presentations are available from Pierre Zuber at pierre.a.zuber@us.adtranz.com

The Committee also received an excellent presentation by Ed Kemp of Union Pacific Railroad on the AAR Wireless Communications Task Force and its VHF Communications System. The Task Force began its work in 1991. It was motivated to utilize the VHF channels assigned the railroads by the FCC. It provides ten blocks of 8 channel pairs for voice trunking, low to medium volume data, telephone interconnect, and potentially for Positive Train Control ATC. The system utilizes the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials APCO P25 digital radio platform, which is widely used for emergency services. It provides voice and data encryption and prevents hackers from gaining access. It uses standard internet protocol routing. The maximum data rate is 6 kb/second. Ed's presentation is available from him at efkemp@up.com

It was agreed that Gerry Graham and John Ewing would review the Adtranz and AAR systems and provide us with recommendations for transit train wayside communications for our June meeting.

6. Working Group Reports

(To facilitate followup by working group leaders activities have been organized by working group even though the agenda does not always follow this approach at the actual meeting. Also, where the group has published its standard and is inactive, no report is provided.)

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.

All Working Groups were reminded to send Paul Jamieson copies of the definitions they are devising for their standards per the above policy.

WG2 (P1474.2) Communications Based Train Control Graphical User Interface, Alan Rumsey, Chair (Report by the Chair) Work on IEEE P1474.2 (Standard for User Interface Requirements in Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) Systems) continues with good support, and steady progress is being made. The first working group meeting was hosted by US&S on April 27, 2000 in Pittsburgh (19 attendees). The meeting developed draft table of contents for the Proposed Standard. The second working group meeting hosted by NJ Transit on July 27, 2000 in Newark (23 attendees). This meeting rviewed/revised draft D1.0 of the Proposed Standard. The third working group meeting was hosted by GE Harris Harmon on November 2, 2000 in Blue Springs (17 attendees). This meeting reviewed/revised draft D2.0 of the Proposed Standard. The fourth working group meeting is to be hosted by APTA on February 22, in Washington D.C. This meeting will review/revise draft D3.0 of the Proposed Standard which is now posted on our website www.tsd.org The expectation is that standard should be ready for balloting by the end of 2001.

Other WG2 activities include the following:

Existing IEEE Std. 1474.1-1999 will be updated to include an expansion of the functional requirements associated with highway grade crossings, in addition to performance and functional requirements for train operations without crews. It is anticipated that work on this update will commence later this year.

A separate working group being chaired by Harold Gillen will develop environmental standards for CBTC wayside electronic equipment.

WG3 (P1482) Rail Vehicle Monitoring and Diagnostic Systems, Rob McHugh, Chair

The committee has 47 members consisting of 18 suppliers, 13 users and 16 general interest with all consultants and regulators included in this category. Since restarting this effort two meetings have been held, at San Francisco MUNI in September and in Washington DC at APTA in December. The next meeting of the working group will be in New York in early April. Draft 3.1 is to be issued one month before the New York meeting. It has been decided that annunciation of faults will be limited to those requiring operator intervention as a policy. Dave Phelps asked Rob if he could attend the APTA Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance Committee meeting April 4-5 in Seattle to update them on his working group activities.

WG8 (P1478) Environmental Standards for Rail Transit Equipment, Chuck Elms, Chair. Copyright issues have been resolved and the standard has received final IEEE Standards Board approval. The standard will be final edited and published by IEEE. The committee congratulated Chuck Elms on his successful effort.

WG9 Transit Communications Interface Profiles for Rail Transit Systems, Fred Woolsey. There was extensive discussion of the progress being made on developing interoperable elements, the relationship between IEEE 1473, IEEE 1475, and UIC 556, and the need to finalize the WG9 data elements so the LIA can develop propulsion and braking SNVTs. Most of the discussion was between persons who are members of the WG9 working group. Therefore the Chair referred the issue of data element policy back to WG9 to develop a consensus among its own members before the issue is brought to the full committee.

WG10 Battery Standard, Stanley Kwa, Chair. A final line by line review of the draft standard was conducted. It was moved by Linda Sue Boehmer, seconded by Dave Phelps and unanimously agreed by the committee to submit this standard to ballot. The IEEE Electronic ballot process is to be used. The procedure for getting it ready for electronic ballot is as follows:

It was agreed that Stan Kwa would send the final Word version ready to ballot to Tom McGean for final review and after Stan OK's any McGean changes, it will be sent to IEEE for review by the IEEE Editor. After the IEEE edit, Stan will then send the Word file to Dave Phelps and Chuck Elms who will each convert it to PDF format and send the converted file back to Stan. Stan will download and review/approve the PDF version and then send one of them to IEEE to put on their website.

The committee also instructed WG10 as follows:

1) Working group to try to further reduce height dimensions in Table 1.

2) Working group to follow IEEE rules for references and bibliography.

3) Paul Jamieson to check if any defintions are now in IEEE 100 and can be deleted and advise Stan Kwa.

4) Stan to do a search to be sure all abbreviations cited are actually referred to in text or annex.

5) Instead of citing IEC 60623 in 4.2, spell out the applicable requirements.

6) Edit Table 1 to be in accord with IEEE format for Tables.

7) McGean to check if IEEE 100 belongs in references or bibliography and correct accordingly. (McGean to also check committee policy in prior standards on citing Urban Transportation Glossary of TRB.)

8) Stan Kwa to check APTA PRESS battery standard corrosion requirements to see if they would be useful.

9) McGean and Phelps to edit Introduction.

WG11 Electrical/Electronic Control Standard, Jim Dietz Chair. Since the last RTVISC meeting in Philadelphia, WG11 has met twice. The technical requirements parts of the standard are coming together nicely. The test section will take a while longer to prepare. The next meeting of the working group will be April 23^rd at NYCT.

WG12 Software Documentation Standard , Paul Jamieson, Chair. The working group met in California and has developed a strategy for software documentation which is presented in Attachments 8 and 9A and B. The RTVISC approved the overall approach of the working group as laid out in these attachments with the proviso that the group check Cenelec standard CN50128 and check it against their proposed approach. A complete WG12 report is provided as Attachment 10.

WG13 NiCad Battery Performance Standard, Alex Sinyak, Chair. The working group met February 4^th and did a line by line review of its draft. The next meeting will be April 4^th at SEPTA. The plan is to be ready to bring the standard before the full committee at the June meeting.

WG14 Highway Rail Intersection, Bill Petit, Chair. This group has had two meetings to date, with a third meeting scheduled for March 22nd in Melbourne, FL. FRA funding, which will be used to speed up the standards development, is almost in place (5 month delay in funding start so far). A consultant (Critical Link) has been working on the draft standard in anticipation of receiving the final funding commitment.

At the meetings, it was agreed to proceed based on use of ATCS communications protocols for the interface (needed to provide required safety and performance) and a top level set of messages was defined. Additional details on these can be found in the minutes of the last meeting (on www.tsd.org/wg14).

FRA has hired a consultant (Phil Oleksyk) to draft an ITS Strategy document for use by the FRA. A preliminary review of that document was scheduled for January, but was cancelled. No date has been set, but another review is tentatively planned for March. Phil is a member of WG14 and Bill Petit is supporting his strategy efforts when he requests information. Phil has noted that the IEEE group has done a substantial amount of work and he appreciated their efforts. As Lou Sanders reported at the last meeting, APTA has formed a Grade Crossing Standards Task Force (chaired by Phil Oleksyk). The first meeting of that group is scheduled for March 6th and 7th.

Special Thanks

Special thanks are due to Chuck Elms and Minnie Moreno of Lea + Elliot for extensive assistance with arrangements as well as for hosting the refreshments and first day luncheon. Thanks are also due to Aurelio Rodriguez and his executive secretary Noemi Rabell of Metro-Dade Transit for providing bus transportation to the Metro Center and from the restaurant, for providing free Metro passes, and for arranging an excellent tour of the Metromover and Metrorail Central Control Center. We also would like to thank Jose Mesa and Robert Dyke for attending and participating in our sessions and Greg Robinson, Samuel Brito and Johnny Strong for conducting the tour of central control.

8. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned February 13^th 2001 in the afternoon.