Within the framework of 2021 EU Year of Rail, EIM invites you to continue discovering the SNCF Réseau programme for a “High performance network”, the modernisation plan for a smarter rail network offering more capacity and reliability to rail customers.

In this 4^th video, SNCF Réseau introduces you to the  “Towers Network Supervision and Control Programme”, also called CCR.

Do you know that today in France there are 1 500 signal boxes spread all across the rail network managing local rail traffic?

In order to make the network more performant, SNCF Réseau has launched the “Towers Network Supervision and Control Programme” -also called CCR – to gather the signal boxes all over France into just a few Control Towers. Today the 1 500 signal boxes on the French rail network are managed sometimes manually or with mechanical, electric and electronic systems. Furthermore, the area supervised by each signal box remains isolated from the rest of the network. As a result, traffic managers have to intervene on each signaling area. In case of unforeseen conflicts, such as late trains, they have sometimes to communicate with several other local traffic managers at the same time to solve these traffic conflicts.

By grouping together all the different actors who manage rail traffic into one operation room of a Control Tower, SNCF Réseau will optimize rail traffic management and improve traffic conflict resolutions. This will result in a better quality of service for passengers and, more importantly, fewer delays. CCR is being rolled out right now and 8 Control Towers are already operational on the network.

Thanks to CCR, the traffic managers of the 8 Control Towers that are already operational can control signals and switches and set routes across much vaster areas of the network.

CCR enables a more efficient rail traffic management with a clearer picture of data traffic all along the network. CCR is therefore essential to run more trains and makes it easier to cope with incidents and delays. CCR is definitely a key element of the French rail network modernisation and is also vital in getting the best out of future digital technologies.

Enjoy this video !