Swedish Transport Administration – NTL

The Swedish railway operations are being streamlined with a new national system, led by Alstom after winning a bid against the Swedish Transport Administration in 2015. Central to this effort is the introduction of Cactus CCS, which integrates all of Sweden’s interlockings. This technology creates a unified communication platform for managing railway traffic efficiently.

From 8 to 1
In Sweden, railway traffic has historically been controlled from eight regional centers. To streamline and coordinate this operation, a procurement process was initiated for a common national system. Alstom won this procurement against the Swedish Transport Administration in 2015, and a significant part of this procurement is a Cactus CCS.

Integrating all of Sweden’s interlockings
Cactus CCS communicates with approximately 800 interlockings in Sweden. An interlocking is the safety-critical system that prevents trains from colliding with each other. The variety of interlockings in Sweden is very large in terms of both interlocking models and communication mechanisms. Here, Cactus CCS serves as a homogenization layer towards the overarching traffic management system from Alstom. That is to say, regardless of underlying data structures and protocols, a certain type of object will be presented in the same way to the overarching system.

Cactus CCS in this application is likely the largest communication platform towards railway infrastructure in the entire world.