Transportation
Managing Italy’s railway network with SCADA FS
Tecnomatix FactoryLink permits control of the entire system from a single location
R F I ( R E T E F E R R O V I A R I A I TA L I A N A )
Siemens PLM Software
Business initiatives
Enterprise data management
Business challenges
Improve service for railway
users
Provide real-time operator
status information for more
timely corrective actions
Keys to success
A flexible, multiplatform
SCADA system
Scalable, object-oriented
software that permits easy
development of vertical
solutions
Ability to manage huge
amounts of data in real time
Results
A single, centrally located
SCADA system that manages
all of Italy’s stations and railway
equipment
Efficient and cost-effective
delivery
Timely railway operation
www.siemens.com/plm
Centralized control of railway network
RFI (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana or Italian Railway
Network) is the part of Gruppo Ferrovie dello
Stato, the state railway. RFI manages the system’s
infrastructure by establishing train paths while
providing signaling, maintenance and other
services for the railway network. RFI’s Command
and Control System (CCS) is the most
advanced, integrated system of its type in the
railway industry.
The CCS controls railway traffic from a single
central location. It manages hundreds of miles
of track carrying a heavy flow of goods and
passenger traffic at high speed. The CCS central
location has more than 30 servers and 26
operator terminals. The CSS is responsible for
maintaining and improving the RFI infrastructure,
as well as optimizing railway circulation. At its central location, the CSS concentrates the
supervisory and control functions for the entire railway system. There, a huge 861 square foot
screen presents operators with real-time information about railway traffic, the infrastructure
status and all other necessary information.
Developing the SCADA FS system
RFI manages the entire railway – all stations and equipment throughout Italy – using Siemens’
Tecnomatix® FactoryLink supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software. The
SCADA FS system enables the RFI organization to generate supervisory and control applications
that can work in standalone mode or be integrated within host systems. These scalable
applications can be transferred to other UNIX or Window operating systems. New configuration
tools have been developed ad hoc in Java language so that the application can function in a specific
working environment. Each application manages about 15,000 tags (from low level) and about ten
thousand alarms.
System architecture
SCADA’s hierarchical architecture is distributed on three levels. The highest levels maintain and
manage the real time data coming from lowest levels. The lowest level (level zero) consists of
 Transportation

Solutions/Services nearly one thousand FactoryLink applications in the

Windows environment. Each application manages
Tecnomatix
approximately 1,500 I/O points coming directly from
controlled railway systems, as well as nearly 10,000
Client’s primary business
internally calculated tags and 4,000 alarms. In general,
RFI manages Italy’s railway
two systems in a hot back-up configuration operate
infrastructure.
www.rfi.it at every controlled railway station. Higher levels of
the system architecture consolidate the real-time data
Client location coming from the lowest level while also handling
Italy
diagnosis and management. The project consists of 68
FactoryLink systems under Digital Unix, with each
system controlling from 10 to 20 railway stations.
This architecture, which runs on Unix servers, has
been adopted at eight different CCS nodes (at Venice, Genoa, Naples, Direttrici Adriatica, Tirrenica,
Bologna-Brenner and Sardinia) for a total of almost 1,500 servers and 3,000 installed clients. Both the
Sardinia and Sicilian nodes, as well as the maintenance systems, use Windows-based equipment, thereby
providing full FactoryLink portability from one operating system to another.
The most important FactoryLink applications reside at the system’s central location. For example, 18
Digital Unix workstations run FactoryLink, with several operator terminals controlling between five to
10 level one maintenance sites, for a total of 100 to 200 railway stations with two million tags and
more than 50,000 alarms.

Centrally located, efficient and cost-effective system

With FractoryLink, RFI’s SCADA system is able to manage all of Italy’s railway stations and equipment.
The result is an efficient, cost-effective railway system that delivers timely operations for its customers.

Contact
Siemens PLM Software
Americas 800 498 5351
Europe 44 (0) 1276 702000
Asia-Pacific 852 2230 3333
www.siemens.com/plm
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