Recent progress boosts REFER’s success

The Portuguese railway has recently seen significant developments with many of its operations including the construction and renovation of its infrastructure, railway systems and equipment, as well as making alterations to management personnel; including those involved in maintenance and traffic management divisions.

Along with the liberalisation of the railway sector, a set of new challenges were enforced which demanded the infrastructure managers to outline their management plans towards a more competitive market, opening, at the same time, a window of opportunity to increase its market share in transportation.

The assumption of this new reality has led REFER to restructure its organisational philosophy – namely on the aspects that are related to the infrastructure management, with the creation of specific areas directed towards the client as well as its maintenance and reinforcement of traffic components’ integration – in such a way as to create an effective means of response to the transport’s requests and also on fomenting its use, for which we must also point out the strategical guidelines defined by the government for the railway sector and the current policies for environmental protection.

On the strategical guidelines for the railway sector, beyond the creation of logistic platforms, we still have to highlight the railway connections to the maritime ports and airports as well as the definition of objectives for increasing the railway transport market share in freight.

In the very near future, Portugal will have two new freight operators, whose rail vehicles’ certification and homologation processes are already at an advanced stage.

Thus, REFER has been materialising a structural change in its policy, seeking on one hand to adapt to a market’s conjuncture, while on the other hand trying to attain better efficiency earnings through the rationalisation of its resources and activities. REFER aims to achieve all this with a reduction of costs, but at the same time achieving no loss of availability or performance, imposing along the way greater strictness on its investment and introducing cost concepts related to its lifespan and its fund management.

Latest developments and investments

One of the most iconic projects at REFER is the construction of its traffic control centres – CCO (Centros de Comando Operacional) – created with the aim of promoting the optimisation of the network’s exploitation and the railway traffic operational management. The CCO in Lisbon commenced service in late 2007 and the opening of the Oporto CCO followed in April 2008, whilst the Setúbal CCO is programmed to start service during 2009.

The CCO’s perform the coordination of all operations and activities related with railway traffic control, and their aim is to increase the patterns of reliability and availability towards the sector’s Operators, as well as to further increase traffic efficiency, quality and safety.

At the CCO’s, the functions of traffic management, overhead catenary system command, general public information, vigilance and security of premises (stations and otherwise) and management of infrastructure incidents with influence in traffic, are all integrated. The CCO’s are provided with a ‘Crisis Room’ which can be used in the moments in which the degraded functioning of traffic demands the presence of the railway operators at the scene. There is also a ‘Training Room’ for real-time simulation of tools and system’s as well as a ‘Visitors’ Room’ for reception.

All information related to traffic management, the gathering of data, reports and user fee invoices, are all found within the CCOs. To aid all of this, a set of computer programmes have been developed.

With the opening of the Setúbal CCO programmed for 2009, REFER will have control of approximately 90% of all railway traffic in Portugal. The Lisbon CCO is already prepared to take control in the future of the high-speed lines’ traffic management as well.

On the Sintra Line in Lisbon’s suburban area, REFER has completed a structural remodelling of the Rossio Tunnel through the construction of a concrete closed section 1,180m long. Total replacement of the track’s platform is being done with a concrete embedded railway track (slab track) to the tunnel’s full extension (2,613m), which has allowed the increase of traffic speed up to 90km/h and guaranteed easy access for emergency vehicles. Being a critical infrastructure inside Lisbon’s urban area, video surveillance as well as fire protection systems have been installed, and emergency exits rearranged.

In March 2008, REFER put into service a new railway branch line to connect Siderurgia Nacional (part of the Setúbal district) into the network. This includes an extension of 4,500m aimed at transporting goods to and from the Seixal industrial park, including a general purpose marshalling yard with minimum 600m-span lines, provided with a catenary system, railway signalling systems and ground-to-train radio links. This branch line is described as a priority investment by the government in its ‘Strategical Guidelines for the Railway Sector’ (‘Orientações Estratégicas para o Sector Ferroviário’).

In the Oporto Metropolitan area, we must refer to the start of service of the Linha do Norte’s unlevelled line at Espinho, which is approximately 2km long and includes a tunnel of approximately 950m, which has allowed us to free the previous railway ‘channel’ for public use. This intervention contemplated the construction of a new passenger building (station) as well as the suppression of four level crossings.

Since late 2007, a system for detection of wheels and hot boxes has been functioning aimed at pointing out overheating of the wheels. This data is streamed in real-time back to the CCO. With the implementation of this preventative safety level system in our network, we survey approximately 80% of freight traffic.

We must still refer to the progress of the level-crossing suppression programme, which has been significantly contributing to the diminishing number of accidents, reflecting the safety policies REFER has been developing since the 1980s.

An assistance system at level crossings has also been developed using a VoiP platform that allows a direct dialog with the users in case of malfunction or identification of potentially dangerous situations for the regular railway traffic, with no extra cost for the user.

REFER has introduced a set of investments on its railway network which are essentially aimed at the following:

• Elimination of existing constraints
• Improvement of railway connections in urban and suburban areas
• Connections to maritime ports
• Reduction of travel times
• Increase in capacity
• Enlargement of the overhead electrification system (catenary) and power supply infrastructure
• Railway signalling systems and communication systems
• Construction of multimodal freight terminals

Within this scope is the Trofa’s variant line on the Minho Line, which will allow the elimination of a bottleneck in an existing singe track railway, highlighting within this intervention the construction of a 1,400m-long tunnel, a 330m-long viaduct and a new station that includes a multimodal interface with other means of transport.

Still referring to the variant lines, we must also point out the construction of the Alcácer variant line, with an extension of approximately 29km. This will allow a direct connection to the Poceirão Logistic Platform, a separation of long distance traffic from regional and freight traffic, and a reduction in the travelling time of approximately 10 minutes on the route from Lisbon to Faro. Within this variant line, there will be a construction of a 480m-long bridge and two access viaducts, covering a length of approximately 1,100m each. This variant line is also described as a priority investment by the government in its ‘Strategical Guidelines for the Railway Sector’ (‘Orientações Estratégicas para o Sector Ferroviário’).

Concerning the important connections to maritime ports, mention must be made to the construction of the 15km-long Porto de Aveiro railway branch line, and also the construction of the multimodal platform at Cacia, with a connection to the North Line. This platform will be constructed in an area of approximately 120,000m2, establishing itself as a ‘sorting table’ for goods with origin/destination at the Porto de Aveiro port.

In the Lisbon Metropolitan area, the interventions set out at the Sintra Line should be highlighted, in which construction pace proceeds with the quadruplication of track lines between the stations of Barcarena and Cacém. This also includes the construction of multimodal rail-road interfaces and new passenger buildings on train stations, and on the Alentejo Line, the conclusion of the modernisation on the stretch from Barreiro to Pinhal Novo which includes the renewal of track layouts, the construction of a new terminal station for connection with the Ferry Terminal, electrification and a new railway signalling system and communication system.

Two projects are currently underway concerning safety. One is related to the detection of obstacles on level crossings using radar technology which is already at a test stage. The second project is related to the detection of invasion of the rail gauge following rock falls which use fibre optics as vibration sensors.

Other projects under development

Concerning infrastructure renovation and following other previous investment actions, some studies and projects are already underway on the North Line, the Minho Line, and Beira Baixa Line. The freight corridor of Sines-Elvas, defined as a European priority project and approved by the European Comission, has already been renovated.

On the North Line, several infrastructure renovation interventions are already planned concerning tracks, catenary, signalling and telecommunication systems, on the sections laid out between the Mato Miranda, Entroncamento, Alverca and Vila Franca de Xira stations and also between Ovar and Gaia stations, besides the track bed protection against flooding of the Tagus River between the Sacavém and Alverca Stations and also at the Azambuja station.

The Santarém variant line, with a length of 26km, will allow the abandonment of the current layout of the North Line between the Vale de Santarém and the Vale de Figueira stations, an area with speed restrictions and profound problems related to geotechnical instability. Within the scope of this intervention, a new station to serve the city of Santarem is planned for construction.

On the Minho Line, an intervention is being approved to quadruple the track layout between the Contumil and Ermesinde stations, which aims at eliminating the traffic bottlenecks and allowing an increase in this section’s capacity and separate traffic between the Minho and the Douro Lines.

On the Beira Baixa Line, a public tender is underway to fully renovate the infrastructure between the Castelo Branco and Covilhã stations, covering a stretch approximately 71km long, and an identical intervention (still in project stage) for the Covilhã-Guarda stretch, with a 47km extension, both on single track railway.

In the forthcoming years, we expect the implementation of the ERTMS system in the Portuguese railway network, whose first use is predicted to be within the Cascais Line modernisation process, in the Lisbon suburban area.

In what concerns the infrastructure management (traffic and maintenance), it is probable that along with the actual materialisation of the predicted investments, namely electrification, railway signalling systems, communication and suppression of level crossings, an increase in traffic command and control concentration will occur at the CCO with a consequential reduction of operational costs and resources used.

On the infrastructure maintenance aspect, a significant effort is being made to reduce the cost of outsourcing – namely by reviewing the routines and keeping in mind previous records, without a loss of infrastructure availability. It is our intention to proceed with this strategy, along with an increase in internal activity and competence.

On the lines with low traffic frequency, technical solutions are being implemented for simplified use, resorting new telecommunication technologies, available through GSM, allowing traffic management to be made with a single agent, defined as a ‘Line leader’.

In what concerns the relationship towards railway operators, it should be highlighted that beyond the continuous effort for contracting services not included in the user’s fee, there is full availability of computer applications for service requests and non-scheduled running requests, allowing a better accuracy on service invoices and on control of its rendering.

With concentration of traffic management activities and consequential freeing of unnecessary space in stations, REFER has being pursuing a policy to re-use the meanwhile available premises, through contracts with public or private entities for commercial, touristic, social or cultural purposes, which has allowed the attainment of additional income.