Ineco, which has extensive experience in Spain in the field of railway safety studies, especially in high speed, as well as in other fields, has exported its knowledge: for the Panama City Metro, it carried out ISAs for the new Line 2 and extension of Line 1, a job that took two years. It also carried out safety studies on the first high-speed line in Saudi Arabia, between Makkah and Madinah\u00a0 (Haramain High Speed Railway project),<\/i> which went into operation in October 2018.<\/p>\n
More than 8 million passengers a month use the two operating lines of the Panama City Metro. In 2014, the opening of the first suburban line, with a length of 15.8 kilometres, revolutionised public transport for the city\u2019s more than 880,000 inhabitants. Growth in demand has made it necessary to expand its capacity by adding 6 new trains to the 20 existing ones, and expanding the number of carriages from three to five, which in turn made it necessary to modify tracks and facilities, purchase new supplies and carry out other supplementary works.<\/p>\n
Ineco exports its extensive experience\u00a0in railway\u00a0safety\u00a0studies<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In addition, in January 2019, the new 21-kilometre Line 2 was partially opened to provide a service to pilgrims from all over the world who attended the World Youth Day, presided over by Pope Francis. For nine days, with no notable incidents, the line section, consisting of five of the sixteen stations, transported 2.6 million people. On 28 January, once the event was over, the line closed again for works to complete it, and it officially opened in April.<\/p>\n
To make the process possible with full safety guarantees, since 2015, Ineco has been carrying out the Independent Safety Assessments (ISAs) on both lines for the company Alstom. On the one hand, for the adaptation actions aimed at expanding the capacity of Line 1, and, on the other, for the subsystems of the newly constructed Line 2:\u00a0 track, rolling stock, signalling system, power supply, supervision and control of trains, communications and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), among others.<\/p>\n
Safety studies for the Makkah-Madinah line<\/h4>\n
The so-called \u2018Pilgrims\u2019 High Speed Railway\u2019 made its first official trip on 25 September 2018 and began commercial operation in October. Ineco was one of the 12 Spanish companies (the others being Renfe, Adif, Talgo, Consultrans, OHL, COPASA, Imathia, Dimetronic, Indra, Cobra and Inabensa) and two Saudi firms in the consortium that was awarded the international contract to build the second phase of the project in 2011.<\/p>\n
Ineco is present in all phases of the safety life cycle, from the start of the project to validation<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
After phase 1 (civil works for the construction of the track platform and stations), which was awarded to another consortium, phase 2 included track and overhead line installation, electrification, control centres, supply of 35 trains, and operation and maintenance of the line for a period of 12 years.<\/p>\n
The new 450-kilometre line is the first high-speed line in Saudi Arabia and the entire region. It is designed for speeds of up to 320 km\/h and connects the two holy cities of Islam, Makkah and Madinah, with five stops in total. It has a double track in standard gauge (1,435 mm), 25\u00a0kV, 60\u00a0Hz electrification and is equipped with the ERTMS level 2 signalling system.<\/p>\n
As one of the project tasks \u2013supervision of track assembling, train traffic tests, etc.\u2013 Ineco also carried out safety studies associated with phases of the project, always applying Spanish CENELEC regulations.<\/p>\n
In the concept and definition phase, the technical specifications of the track, overhead lines, signalling, telecommunications, installation and maintenance bases, signalling control points, operation control centres (OCCs), high- and low-voltage electrification and RAMS requirements were prepared. Based on this, a safety plan for the system was generated.<\/p>\n
In the risk analysis phase, a hazard log was created to manage hazards, including a description of each hazard, its status (open, controlled, cancelled transferred or closed), initial and final assessment, the person in charge, etc. The EN 50126 standard provides a detailed list of all possible hazards, establishes the levels of probability (from frequent to unlikely) and severity (from insignificant to catastrophic), and classifies them (from acceptable to intolerable).<\/p>\n
In the stages that followed, identification of requirements and traceability, the development of the hazard log continued, establishing the safety requirements for the signalling, track, station and power subsystems. After the analysis, the corresponding mitigation measures were established and applied in order to reduce the detected risks to acceptable levels.<\/p>\n
In the design and implementation phase, the standard stipulates the need for a design \u2018safety case\u2019, which is a detailed report that, once validated by an Independent Safety Assessor (in this case, the Italian company ITALCERTIFER), gives the green light to the operation and maintenance of the infrastructure. In the Haramain project, Ineco produced, among others, the safety case for the signalling control points and auxiliary detection systems (detectors and concentrators), as well as for the management of rolling stock interfaces with the rest of the subsystems.<\/p>\n