Fully automated Funkwerk passenger information for railways in Luxembourg
Increasing national and international tourism and a desire to optimise route capacities and consolidate personnel in control centres prompted Luxembourg’s national railway company to adopt a new operational management strategy. The new strategy envisages a centralised and highly automated means of handling business and communication processes.
CFL, Luxembourg’s state railway company, is intending to roll out a new passenger information system and modernise the display systems at stations. At the heart of this project is a process of implementing a high degree of automation, including with regard to complex business processes, for the purpose of centralised management of the various stations. Up-to-date timetable information and train announcements are taken from a primary signal box system before being analysed and processed in Funkwerk AG’s passenger information system.
As part of a modernisation programme, all railway stations in Luxembourg are to be fitted with the AURIS passenger information system and Funkwerk AG display systems by the end of 2021. The CURA public address system from Funkwerk AG is also being installed at all stations in the course of the project. ‘We’re supplying both visual and audio passenger information systems,’ said Kerstin Schreiber, CEO of Funkwerk AG. CURA uses text-to-speech technology to output automated announcements in four languages: German, English, French and Luxembourgish. This guarantees the greatest possible flexibility for passenger announcements.
For AURIS, an LED display board has been installed at Luxembourg central station to provide passengers with up-to-date timetable information and any special announcements. In addition, there are now more than 200 47-inch TFT displays and more than 150 47-inch information totems in use at stations in Luxembourg. If services are reduced or altered in any way, passengers can read the updates displayed on the information totems. Associations representing people with disabilities have responded positively to the system and reported widespread approval among their members.
