General information:

GSM-Rail (GSM-R) is an international wireless communications standard for railway communication and applications. GSM-R includes standard GSM features (e.g., voice point-to-point communication and SMS) as well as several additional railway-related features, such as Railway Emergency Call (REC), Functional Addressing, and Short Dialing codes.

In 2006, after following a European Tender, the rolling stock fleet of NS was equipped with GSM-R cab radios. The maintenance contract of the current GSM-R cab radios will expire within some years. As per the admission requirements, it is necessary for NS to maintain the continuity of the GSM-R cab radio functionality on its rolling stock fleet.

NS has decided to replace the current GSM-R cab radios used for the voice communication of its rolling stock fleet with new GSM-R cab radios.

The new GSM-R cab radios must comply with the requirements of the applicable version of Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI) for Command Control and Signaling (CCS). This includes the GSM-R specifications defined by the EIRENE (European Integrated Railway Radio Enhanced Network) project of the International Union of Railways (UIC). The EIRENE specifications include the EIRENE Functional Requirement Specification (FRS) and the EIRENE System Requirement Specification (SRS).

The GSM-R equipment needs to, as a minimum, fully comply with the aforementioned requirements in order to be permitted to be used in The Netherlands and the rest of the EU.