The railway operational communications network built by Huawei and partners for Kenya's Mombasa-Nairobi rail project is now officially in commercial use, while a similar network across several cities in South Africa will go live in October 2017.

The multinational ICT company announced that the Global System for Mobile Communications-Railway (GSM-R) network, which is already in use in other parts of the world, will enable multiple communications tasks – including mission-critical train dispatch, emergency communications, section maintenance communications, secure transmission, and a secure power supply along train lines.

Norman Frisch, Marketing Director of the Transport Sector for Huawei Enterprise Business Group says the newly installed digital wireless technology will make travel by train more efficient.

"Putting a new railway communication system in place will help to run more efficient passenger transport. The train controller will have direct access to the driver through the push of one button. It means that it will be known where all assets are and reduce delays while making it possible to explain to the railway operation and passengers why there is a delay as well as when the delay will be eased. GSM-R network is digitising the railway networks."

The GSM-R system for the Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (PRASA) has been rolled out through a consortium comprising of Huawei, Altech, Alcom and Matomo which won the five-year R600 million contract in 2013 for GSM-R rollout across 153 sites in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

Huawei has 60% shareholding in the consortium according to PRASA. The 800km rail line covered by the GSM-R system covers only 35% of PRASA's 2300km-long rail network in South Africa.

The GSM-R system will also provide communication services to automatic train protection systems and introduce the ability for semi-automatic train driving capacity in the network in order to improve reliability and safety of the rail operation, according to Frisch.

"I see the deployment of the GSM-R network here in South Africa as a baby of the BRICS partnership. This makes me very proud. Today we have 800 kilometres of GSM-R, our partners have a significant amount of work rolled out by local people to install base stations, create masts, build sites to actually make this possible. A huge amount of this contract was delivered with local partners here in South Africa. The network has been rolled out, PRASA staff have been trained and the system has been handed over and PRASA is now in the position to run the network."

Improvements toward a Pan African railway network

Piet Sebola, Group Executive for Strategic Asset Development at PRASA believes the launch of the GSM-R system in South Africa and a few weeks earlier in Kenya are important steps toward creating a harmonised communications system for rail lines on the continent for the benefit of trade and travel between different countries.

"We need to commend the African region because we want to do cross-border operations. The challenge has always been that if the systems are not talking to one another you get to the border and you realise that you are getting into a different system and the communication is disrupted. We welcome (the fact that) investment like this also happening in Kenya because it means that we can have a seamless communication system on the continent."

The Mombasa-Nairobi line is part of a long-term plan to connect a vast network of rails from Kenya, through Uganda and Burundi, and up to South Sudan.

Sebola says more South African cities like Port Elizabeth will be included on the GSM-R network in the near future.