New Frugal Rail Signaling (NS2F) is a collaborative project supported by the French government as part of the France Relance 2030 program, aimed at revitalizing nearly 200 little-used rail lines. This Thales initiative is part of the national low-carbon strategy, and paves the way for the arrival of the Train Léger Innovant (Innovative Light Train). NS2F innovations include minimalist signaling elements limited to points, geolocation for train positioning, the use of cyber-secure telecommunications networks, centralized server-based supervision, level-crossing monitoring, and predictive maintenance using on-board sensors.
The benefits of NS2F include simplified operational deployment with reduced costs, better anticipation of repairs and reduced overheads thanks to predictive maintenance. It also improves safety, particularly at level crossings, while ensuring interoperability with the national network.
In short, NS2F aims to save little-used railway lines by using innovative and economically viable signalling, thus contributing to the optimization of territories and the development of passenger and freight transport.
CLEARSY is a partner in this project and is developing a simulation environment for the signalling system, which will reduce the cost of configuring the lines to be equipped with this frugal system.
In addition, CLEARSY is contributing to safety by providing the tool for validating and generating safe system configuration data, used by the safety systems.