Digitalisation, Data, Emerging Innovations - Exchange of Data - Data exchange with Driver Advisory Systems (DAS) following the SFERA protocol

Driver Advisory Systems (DAS) are key tools in improving performance in the short term without tremendous investment.

A common solution is necessary to make this improvement potential available to the largest number of vehicles, including in the context of international operations.

This IRS describes the SFERA protocol, which specifies technical guidelines to handle data exchange with DAS, to facilitate the use of DAS on international journeys and to enable their connection to Traffic Management Systems.

The SFERA protocol is meant as a single messaging standard for data exchange between Infrastructure Managers (IM), Railway Undertakings (RU) and on-board devices, which accommodates Automatic Train Operations (ATO) and DAS applications, working both over ETCS and other train protection systems.

By using this harmonised DAS protocol:

• RUs can choose their preferred DAS products and increase their energy savings;
• IMs can offer a single interface to all RUs regardless of the DAS supplier;
• migration between products is facilitated, e.g. to other train protection systems or to other ATO systems;
• RUs and IMs ensure more consistency and compatibility in the solutions they invest in.