The Faculty of Transportation Sciences, CTU in Prague, and the company AŽD ceremoniously opened the new modern Competence Center Dětenice. It was built on the experimental track Kopidlno – Dolní Bousov in the Hradec Králové region with the aim of creating a specialized training facility mainly for students of railway fields.
In the center, which was established in less than 12 months by revitalizing the original service warehouse within the Dětenice railway station, a modern training hall with a capacity of 25 listeners and modular classroom arrangement according to the real needs of the project was built.
It also includes the most modern Unified Service Workplace DIGITAL 4.0 with direct train path assignment and control of outdoor elements, which are directly controlled from the competence center.
The Competence Center Dětenice is designed as an open training platform where students can try out a variety of technologies and, with the help of experts from AŽD, implement innovative projects that would be difficult to realize under other conditions.
This project aims to connect the academic sphere with the railway industry and create an environment where students, academics, and practitioners will meet not only within standard teaching but also when working on development projects. In addition to close cooperation with the Faculty of Transportation Sciences, CTU in Prague, the company AŽD is beginning to intensively cooperate on the format of use with other universities. Currently, the project includes, among others, the Faculty of Transportation Jan Perner University of Pardubice.
The Czech railway industry has been struggling for a long time with a shortage of students and quality experts, among other things, in the field of security technology and telecommunications. The railway industry "fights" for these students with a number of other fields, and it is therefore necessary to show that railway transport is an attractive field and has something to offer.
The Competence Center Dětenice presents modern security and telecommunication technologies to students and the wider professional public, which are represented by both station (StationSWing ESA 51 Dětenice) and track (TrackSWing AHP-03D, AH-ESA) and crossing security devices (GateSWing PZZ-J, PZZ GTS, PZZ-ACE), which serve to ensure the safe railway operation of designated technical devices installed on the Kopidlno – Dolní Bousov track. It also includes a school and training exhibit of the ESA type station security device, which allows the demonstration of its properties, including integration with outdoor elements.
The Kopidlno – Dolní Bousov track is equipped with a unified European security system ERTMS/ETCS at level L2, but it also serves to test the use of variable Eurobalises controlled by the LEU unit from AŽD production type TrainSWing LEA-1. The above-mentioned railway security systems, together with the communication and telecommunication systems mentioned below, should enable the subsequent introduction of autonomous train operation on the experimental track.
The school and training exhibit of the ESA type station security device enabling training without affecting the operation of designated technical devices consists of:
The Competence Center Dětenice is also equipped with other communication and telecommunication systems, which should, in accordance with the requirements of the Railway Administration, enable remote control of the Kopidlno – Dolní Bousov track by the dispatcher from Kopidlno, as well as testing and operation of autonomous railway. Such systems are:
As follows from the above, the Competence Center Dětenice is part of a broader project of the experimental track, on which the company AŽD intends to further develop and test autonomous railway vehicles intended for the open track with future use in real operation with passengers. Thanks to this activity, completely new systems for object and obstacle recognition, autonomous train guidance without the necessary participation of a person, precise vehicle position determination, train integrity assurance, incident and degraded situation resolution, such as stopping before an obstacle, malfunction of some parts of the system, remote train guidance, but also other activities exceeding the area of the autonomous vehicle itself, which are connected with the entire experimental track and possibly with the development tasks of the competence center.
