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Safety and ventilation

Safety and ventilation are essential questions to the railway and urban transports.

In today’s society, which seeks to have total control over events, the safety of people and infrastructure has become a primary concern. It is an objective in itself, and a highly sensitive issue in our time. As a result, risk is increasingly considered unacceptable, both for individuals and groups of people.

Ventilation is an inherent dimension of safety in the transports sector and plays a role apart in transports projects. In the confined space of the tunnel, aerodynamic and thermal phenomena, the spread of smoke in the event of a fire, comfort and emergency ventilation, the flow and evacuation of persons, the intervention of emergency services and the protection of people and infrastructures now play a critical role and are given consideration early in the design phase of new transport systems and underground structures, as well as when modernising the existing infrastructures.

These two issues, ventilation and safety, are cross-cutting themes to transport systems, which call for specialized skills. This is why GESTE chose to treat them apart from the RAIL, URBAN and ROAD fields, in two cross-cutting fields: RAMS (safety) and FLOWS (ventilation).

 

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Rail

Railway companies are the crown jewel of sustainable transport. Today, even as they are evolving faster than ever, they also face a sizeable challenge: maintaining an ageing network while also meeting an important increase in demand that requires the construction of new lines and improving the performance of existing infrastructure.

To respond efficiently to this challenge, railway infrastructure and operation companies must be able to rely on an experienced team of project managers, specialists and engineers in railway technology and infrastructure, who know how to analyse the actual status of the existing network, assess what is needed to meet demand, and plan construction works that will have the desired impact. A team proficient in both the latest technologies and those older, now approaching obsolescence. A team that can also work on projects where rail service is already operating, whilst maintaining the safety and the reliability of traffic, minimising impact on that existing service and coming in under budget and on schedule. Consequently, the involvement of experts in all railway domains, the good planning and scheduling of the phases of the work, the multi-disciplinary management of interfaces as well as the proficiency in signalling and safety installations – which together form the core of railway operations – each play a major role in the success of such projects.

Thanks to their years of experience in railway companies and their involvement in numerous rail projects, our specialists, engineers and technicians help our younger engineers hone their skills and allow us to confidently tackle our clients’ challenges. They provide expert advices, engineering and consultancy services in various railway technical professions, as well as the historical profession of safety installations and signalling, whether trackside (light signalling) or on-board (ERTMS, CBTC).

 

Domains of activities

  • High-speed railway lines
  • Intercity railway lines
  • Regional railway lines
  • Metre gauge railway lines
  • Rack railway lines

 

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Systems engineering, work planning and scheduling

To build a new railway line or to modernize an existing one is becoming more and more complex, as the number of interfaces is continuously growing. Accordingly, the success of such an operation is strongly related to an efficient project management and to the undertaking of an accurate systems engineering.

Thanks to their large experience, our engineers are up to the challenge.

 

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ERTMS and Interoperability

To support the development of a sustainable international railway network of transport, we privilege particularly interoperability and thus the deployment at a European scale of common rules and of a common signaling system, the ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System).

To support this philosophy, we perform expert advise, participate in the definition of deployment strategies and carry out projects from the idea to the commissioning, in the domain of railway interoperability and ERTMS.

 

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Remote controls, signalling and safety installations

At the core of railway operation, signaling and safety installations are key elements to reach a high degree of reliability, security, and performance. However, given their long lifetime (of decades), several generations of equipment can be incorporated in a same line. This reality often represents a barrier to the modification or the renewal of a line.

Thanks to our experience in dealing with different generations of equipment – from bridging technology to the new electronic technology -, we are up to efficiently intervene on old to modern installations. After having audited the line, we are also up to suggest optimized strategies for the maintenance, the modernization and the migration of railway lines.

 

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Overhead line, power supply and cables

To ensure the energy supply for the whole system is one of the strategic problematics in the railway world. The traction current is a particular form of energy that reacts to big load variations over very short periods. With an alternative or a direct current supply, at a voltage that can be of 600 V up to 25 kV, this current can be found under numerous variants. Managing this variety, added to the interface between the overhead line and the whole system, calls for narrowly-defined technical skills.

Thanks to their wide experience, our engineers are up to answer this challenge with professionalism and efficiency.

 

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