This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology
Determination of Cell Coverage Area and its
Applications in High-Speed Railway Environments
Bo Ai, Senior Member, IEEE, Rui-si He, Member, IEEE, Guang-kai Li, Student Member, IEEE, Ke Guan,
Member, IEEE, Dan-ping He, Guo-wei Shi, Zhang-dui Zhong
AbstractIn this paper, a determination method of the cell
coverage area for the narrow-strip-shaped cells in high-speed
railways (HSRs) is proposed, which is of great importance to
the HSR dedicated communication network planning. A closed-
form expression for the cell coverage area is firstly derived on the
basis of the edge outage probability and the propagation channel
parameters, and it is found that the linear coverage in HSRs has
a higher percentage of coverage area than the traditional circular
coverage of cellular systems. For the convenience of link budget
computation, we also present a family of curves related with the
percentage of linear coverage. Then the implementation of the
proposed determination of cell coverage area is presented, and
it is found that the linear cell of HSRs has a larger maximum
communication distance than circular coverage. Furthermore, the
impact of frequency on the HSR link budget is investigated and
the results show that a lower frequency band reduces the number
of the required base stations. The results can be used in designing
and optimizing the wireless coverage and the communication
network planning of HSR communications.
Index TermsCell coverage area, cell edge outage prob-
ability, high-speed railway communications, link budget
computation, network planning.
I. I NTRODUCTION
IGH-speed railway (HSR) communications have recent-
H ly attracted much interest, because they potentially guar-
antee the safe operation of the train, and to improve efficiency
of rail traffic systems [1]. As indicated by International Union
of Railways (UIC), there have been over 32,000 km HSR lines
all over the world by 2015, and the maximum train wheel
speeds of HSR has recently reached nearly 575 km/h, trialed
by the French National Rail Corporation. China has tested
the CIT500 type high-speed train (HST) with the maximum
train wheel speeds of 605 km/h. The fast development of HSR
leads to a series of research on train operation safety, where
an effective train operation control system is required. There
are several technical specifications for train operation control
B. Ai, R.-S. He, G.-K. Li, K. Guan, D.-P. He and Z.-D. Zhong are with the
State Key Lab of Rail Traffic Control and Safety, Beijing Jiaotong University,
Beijing 100044, China. (e-mail: boai@bjtu.edu.cn).
G.-W. Shi is with the China Academy of Telecommunication Research,
Beijing, 100191 ,China (e-mail: shigw@tsinghua.edu.cn)
Supported by National 863 Project under Grant 2014AA01A706, Key
Project from Beijing science and Technology Commission under Grant
D151100000115004; the Natural Science Base Research Plan in Shaanxi
Province of China under Grant 2015JM6320; Key grant Project of Chinese
Ministry of Education.(No.313006); Key Project of China Railway Cor-
poration under Grant 2014X013-A; Natural Science Foundation of China
under Grant U1334202); National Natural Science Foundation of China under
Grant 61501020 and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant
2016M591355.
0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
systems: European train control system (ETCS) level0-level3
and Chinese train control system (CTCS) level1-level4 for
railways [2]; and communication based train control system
(CBTC) for subways [3]. Recently, a standard for Positive
Train Control is being developed within IEEE 802.15 Task
Group 4p [4]. In these train operation control systems, dedi-
cated mobile communication systems are used for train control
data transmission, where a well-designed and reliable com-
munication system is necessarily required. In addition to the
purpose of reliable train operation control data transmission,
the high volume, high data-rate transmission for passenger
recreation are also crucial for future railway development [5],
[6].
In the design of a wireless communication system, the
coverage area is an important consideration factor when the
communication system is firstly deployed. Cell coverage refers
to the number of base stations that are required to cover or
provide services to a given area with an acceptable grade
of service [7]. It is very important to make an estimation
of the effective coverage area, so that the reliability of the
communication network can be evaluated and a certain service
quality can be guaranteed, especially when the communication
network is used for train control data transmission. Moreover,
the communication system that requires the fewest number of
base stations to cover a given geographic area has an infras-
tructure cost advantage. Till now, there is no literature dealing
with the topic on cell coverage area in HSR environments.
To improve the system performance and optimize wireless
coverage, the determination of the cell coverage area is very
important. The cell coverage area is defined as the expected
percentage of area within a cell that has received power
above a given minimum value [8], [9]. It is well-known
that due to the effect of transmission path loss and shadow
fading, some locations within a coverage area will have a
received signal below a particular threshold. Computing how
the boundary coverage related to the overall percentage of
coverage area is very useful for the link budget and communi-
cation network planning [10][12]. Though this problem has
been solved for the circular coverage of public land mobile
cellular communication systems [13], there are significant
differences between the dedicated mobile communications and
the public land mobile communications [14]. As we know, the
prediction of coverage is thus significantly affected by the cell
topographical features; while one of the distinct differences is
the complicated scenarios such as viaducts, cuttings, railway
stations, marshalling stations, tunnels in HSR environments
[15]. Therefore, the determination of the cell coverage area in
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

%DVHVWDWLRQ

%DVHVWDWLRQ
&HOO

&HOO

Fig. 1: Narrow-strip-shaped cell of HSR communications.

HSR environments will differ greatly from that of the public
land mobile communication networks. As far as we know,
there is a lack of the determination of percentage of coverage
area in the narrow-strip-shaped HSR cells, i.e., the linear
coverage. An important feature of HSR communication system
is the narrow-strip-shaped cell, as illustrated in Fig. 1, where
the base stations are generally placed close to the railway track,
each base station has directional antennas pointing to each
side of the base station, and a narrow-strip-shaped coverage
region along the rail track is achieved by the two base station
antennas. A narrow beam width of base station antenna is
usually used so that it provides a high gain for most areas of
the cell and less interferences from the public communication
networks. The crucial point is to determine the percent of
locations within a linear rail track area where the received
signal strength from a radiating base station antenna exceeds
a particular threshold.
channel models.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section
II derives a closed-form equation of determination of cell
coverage area on the basis of the edge outage probability
and the propagation channel parameters, presents a family
of curves related with the percentage of linear coverage, and
compares the coverage of the linear cell of HSR and traditional
circular coverage of cellular systems. Section III implements
the proposed determination of cell coverage area on the current
HSR communication network planning based on the reported
channel models. Section IV discusses the impact of working
frequency on the determination of cell coverage area for
the next generation HSR communication systems. Section V
concludes the paper.

In this paper, we show that the circular coverage algorithm II. D ETERMINATION OF CELL COVERAGE AREA
in HSR link budget would lead to an overlaid base station
arrangement and the percentage of linear coverage area in
the narrow-strip-shaped HSR cells can be well predicted by In this section, we derive a closed-form determination
using the edge outage probability and the propagation channel of HSR cell coverage area. Let P [PRX (r) > T] denote the
parameters. A closed-form equation for the determination of probability that the random received signal PRX (r) at any
distance r exceeds a desired received signal threshold of T .
cell coverage area is derived. It is found that the narrow- It has been well known that the received power PRX (r) (in
strip-shaped cell in HSRs generally has a higher percentage dB) at any distance r is random and distributed normally
of coverage area compared with the circular coverage of about the local mean power PRX (r) [7][9], [16], [17]. Thus,
cellular systems. A carefully designed link budget procedure P [PRX (r) > T] can be calculated from the normal cumulative
is required for HSRs. However, there still lacks effective link density function as follow
( )
budget algorithms in HSRs. Currently, the algorithms for the T PRX (r)
traditional cellular system have been widely used for HSRs, P [PRX (r) > T] = Q , (1)

which significantly reduces the efficiency of HSR systems.
A series of HSR-specific link budget algorithms are thus
required. Based on the derived cell edge outage probability and where is the standard deviation of the normally distributed
shadow fading (in dB scale). The Q-function is defined as
the determined cell coverage area for HSR, a method of the ( ) [ ( )]

maximum communication distance estimation for HSR cells 1 x2 1 z
Q(z) = exp dx = 1 erf , (2)
with the UIC permitted receiving signal power level at the cell 2 z 2 2 2
edges is proposed as well. The impacts of HSR scenario and
frequency bands are further discussed based on the reported where erf() indicates the error function. Therefore, (1) can

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

be further expressed as margin M to ensure a given edge outage probability, which is

expressed as
P (PRX (r) > T) ( )
2 M = PRX (D) T , (12)
T 1 (PRX (r) PRX (r))
=1 exp d (PRX (r)) then the term a in (8) can be re-defined as
2 2 2 ,
( )
T PRX (r) M
1 1
= erf a= , (13)
2 2 2 2
(3) and the cell edge outage probability Pout,e can then be
expressed as
We use the classical log-distance path loss model to deter- Pout,e = P [PRX((D) < T]
mine PRX (r), which can be expressed as )
T PRX (D)
=1Q
PRX (r) = PTX + G (
PL ( ))
( )
r , (4)
= PTX + G P L0 + 10nlog10 1 1 T PRX (D) (14)
r0 = + erf
2 2 ) 2
(
where PTX is the transmit power, P L is the path loss, P L0 1 1 M
= erf .
is the intercept value of P L, n is the path loss exponent, and 2 2 2
d0 = 1 km is the reference distance. Then P [PRX (r) > T]
can be expressed as By using (8), (13), and (14), we only have terms Pout,e and
/n in (11), and a prediction of UL can be conducted.
P [PRX (r) >(T] = ) Fig. 2 shows the family of curves related with the percentage
1 1 T [PTX + G (P L0 + 10nlog10 (r/r0 ))]
erf of linear coverage area UL in HSR communications, as a
2 2 2
(5) function of edge outage probability Pout,e and /n. We
evaluate UL for a large number of values of n, , and Pout,e ,
For a narrow-strip-shaped cell in HSRs with the maximum as shown in Fig. 2. For example, if n = 4, = 8 dB, and
distance D from the base station, we denote UL as the Pout,e = 0.2, the linear coverage UL is close to 96%.
percentage of linear coverage area for a HSR line with a In Fig. 3, the percentage of coverage area UC for a circular
received signal equal to or greater than T , which can be cell, as reported in [11] is plotted for comparison with the
expressed as linear coverage of the HSRs. In [11], the percentage of
D coverage area for a circular cell is defined as
1
UL = P [PRX (r) > T] dr . (6) UC =
D 0 ( ( )[ ( )])
1 1 2ab 1 ab
Substituting (5) to (6), we have (7). 1 erf(a) + exp 1 erf
2 b2 b
For the convenience of the following analysis, we let (15)
T PTX G + P L0 + 10nlog10 (D/r0 )
a=
2 where a and b are defined by (8) and (13), respectively.
10nlog10 (e) , (8)
b= It is found that the linear coverage of HSRs has a higher
2 percentage of coverage area than the circular cell. For example,
then UL in (7) can be expressed as if n = 3, = 9 dB, and Pout,e = 0.3, then the percentage of
coverage area is around 90% and 85% for linear coverage of
D [ ( ( r ))]
1 1 HSRs and circular coverage of cellular systems, respectively.
UL = erf a + b ln dr , (9)
2 2D D We also note that the difference between the two curves
0
in Fig. 3 increases with Pout,e . This shows that an over-
The above integral can be evaluated by substituting t = a + coverage of the network planning would occur if the link
b ln (r/D), so that budget of the cellular systems is directly applied for the HSR

1 1 a
ta communication systems.
UL = exp( ) erf (t) dt . (10)
2 2b b
Then, the closed-form determination of UL in (10) can be TABLE I: Parameters of simulation
expressed as Parameters Values
1 exp(a/b) Pout,e 0.5-1
UL =
[2 ( )
2 ( ) ( ) ]t=a Carrier frequency 150 & 1500 MHz
1 1 t 
exp erf t + exp erf (t)  Standard deviation of shadowing 5 dB
4b 2 2b ( 
) b t= Minimum received power T -100 dBm
1 erf (a) 1 1 4ab
= exp Base station antenna height 25 m
[ (2 )2 ] 4b2
1 Mobile station antenna height 4m
erf a 1 Total antenna gain 0 dB
2b
(11) Transmit power 30 dBm

We note that there are two parameters in (11), a and b,

where b can be expressed by /n. If we introduce a shadowing To further compare the results, we implement the proposed

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

1 D
UL = P [PRX (r) > T] dr
D0
[ ( )]
1 D 1 1 T [PTX + G (P L0 + 10nlog10 (r/r0 ))]
= erf dr
D0 2 2 2
[ ( )] (7)
1 D 1 1 T PTX G + P L0 + 10nlog10 (r/D) + 10nlog10 (D/r0 )
= erf dr
D0 2 2 2
[ ( )]
1 1 D T PTX G + P L0 + 10nlog10 (D/r0 ) 10nlog10 (r/D)
= erf + dr
2 2D 0 2 2

Cell Edge Outage probability

1 0.01
0.05
0.95 0.1
Percentage of Coverage Area

0.9
0.2

0.85

0.3
0.8

0.75
0.4

0.7

0.65 0.5
0 2 4 6 8 10
/n
Fig. 2: Family of curves relating percentage of linear coverage area in HSRs, as a function of edge outage probability Pout,e
and /n. The numbers in the vertical left axis represent UL and the numbers in the vertical right axis represent Pout,e .

determination method of the cell coverage area in the link
budget computation to evaluate the maximum communication
distance, i.e., the edge position of the linear cell D. The
implementation steps are as follows:
For a given Pout,e and channel conditions (n and ), the
shadowing margin M can be calculated from (14).
By using (4), (12) and the values of M , the maximum
communication distance D can be calculated.
With a and b in (8), which can be calculated using (13),
n, and , the percentage of coverage area UL can be
further calculated, which means that the relation between
D and UL is built.
In the above steps, the input parameters are T , n, , and
Pout,e . As an example, we evaluate the maximum communica-
tion distance using the suburban Hata path loss formula [10].
Other simulation parameters are summarized in Table I. With
the parameters in Table I, the path loss exponent n = 3.57.
Fig. 4 shows the prediction of the maximum communication
distance using two types of cells at 150 MHz and 1500 MHz,
respectively. The estimated maximum communication distance
under circular cell condition is generally smaller than the linear
cell condition by several kilometers. It is noteworthy that the
difference is larger at 150 MHz compared with the results
at 1500 MHz. This means that the inaccurate evaluation of
cell coverage area in the link budget leads to a more serious
overlaid base station arrangement at low frequency bands.
III. I MPLEMENTATIONS ON L INK B UDGET C OMPUTATION
A ND N ETWORK P LANNING
In this section, we use the above derived determination of
cell coverage area in the link budget computation process
to evaluate the maximum communication distance for HSR
communications with the permitted receiving signal power
level at the HSR cell edges. By choosing suitable channel
model developed for HSR scenarios, we show that what is
a proper D according to the requirement of UL in HSR
scenarios, which is useful in the communication network
design for HSR.
A. Channel Model under HSR Scenario
The current HSR communication is based on the narrow-
band GSM-R system, working at 930 MHz band. There have
been some developed channel models based on the actual
measurements for HSR scenarios such as cuttings [18], [19],

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

0.95

Percentage of Coverage Area

0.9 0.1

0.85

0.8

0.75
0.3
0.7

0.65

0.6
Circular Cell
Railway Cell
0.5
0.55
0 2 4 6 8 10
/n
Fig. 3: Comparison of percentage of coverage area between circular cell and HSR linear cell, as a function of edge outage
probability Pout,e and /n. The numbers in the vertical left axis represent both UL and UC . The numbers in the tail of arrows
represent Pout,e .

1
Circular Cell
0.95 Railway Cell
0.9
Percentage of Coverage Area

0.85

0.8
150 MHz
1500 MHz
0.75

0.7

0.65

0.6

0.55

0.5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Maximum Communication Distance [km]
Fig. 4: Coverage area predictions for the two types of cells at 150 MHz and 1500 MHz, respectively.

viaducts [20], [21], tunnels [22][24], crossing bridges [25] cells were used in the path loss modeling [27], [28]. The test
and railway stations [26]. In this paper, we use the path loss cell numbers for different HSR scenarios is shown in Table II.
model in [27], [28], which is a comprehensive channel model
covering five most typical HSR scenarios including viaduct,
cutting, urban, suburban and rural, which is based on a large
amount of measurement data along Zheng Zhou to Xian HSR
For the shadow fading model, we use the results in [29],
line in China at 930 MHz. The model in [27], [28] is developed
also at 930 MHz. The dB-scaled shadow fading component
from the Hatas formula by introducing two correction factors
in the above 5 scenarios is modeled as a zero-mean Gaussian
to improve the fitness to the data in HSR scenarios. To
distribution and the standard deviation is summarized in
guarantee sufficient accuracy, data from thousands of HSR
[29].

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
TABLE II: Test cell numbers for different scenarios
Scene Cutting Viaduct Railway station Urban Suburban Rural
Test Cell numbers 730 1254
B. Communication Network Planning for HSR
We present the evaluation of the maximum communication
distance D in HSR cell using the proposed determination
method of cell coverage area and the channel models for HSR
[27][29]. To coincide with the actual measurement data, the
antenna heights of the base station and the mobile station
are set to be 25 m and 4 m, respectively in the simulations.
Pout,e is set between 0 and 1, PTX + G = 30 dBm. The
selection of minimum received power T is a key issue for
HSR applications and there are a few options:
T is determined by the receiver sensitivity: For the GSM-
R system of HSR, the thermal noise power at the RX can
be calculated as
NThermal = k( Ttem BW ) ( )
= 1.38 1023 290 200 103
= 8.004 1016
= 120.97 dBm,
(16)
where k is the Boltzmann constant, Ttem is the Kelvin
temperature, BW is the bandwidth. The required RX
power can thus be determined as
T = NThermal + N F + SNRmin
= 121 + 7 + 10
= 104 dBm,
where N F is the noise figure of the RX and SNRmin
is the required operating SNR of GSM-R, both defined
in [30]. T = 104 dBm is acceptable for some HSR
applications with low requirement of QoS.
T is determined by the RX sensitivity and European
safety margin: the GSM-R Operators Group of European
Integrated Railway Radio Enhanced Network [31] sug-
gests to add three additional margins in the link budget
to guarantee HSR safety, where P1 = 6 dB is the margin
for cable aging, P2 = 3 dB is the margin for security
data transmission, and P3 = 3 dB is the margin for high
mobility. Therefore, the required RX power is as
T = 104+P1 + P2 + P3
= 92 dBm,
T is determined by the RX sensitivity and Chinese safety
margin: the GSM-R Operators Group of China [32]
suggests to add 6 additional margins in the link budget
to guarantee HSR safety, where P4 = 3 dB is the margin
for cable aging, P5 = 3 dB is the margin for security data
transmission, P6 = 3 dB is the margin for high mobility,
P7 = 3 dB is the margin for deep fading, P8 = 3 dB is
the margin for interference, and P9 = 3 dB is the margin
for electrization noise. Therefore, the required RX power
0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
Transactions on Vehicular Technology
Mountain River
461 33 1253 415 276 172
is as
T = 104+P4 + P5 + P6 + P7 + P8 + P9
(19)
= 86 dBm.
For comparison, we use all the three values of T to evaluate
the maximum communication distance D in HSR cell. Fig.
5(a)-5(c) show the percentage of coverage area UL against
maximum communication distance D for the 5 typical HSR
scenarios at 930 MHz. Since HSR generally requires high
QoS, three percentage levels of 90%, 95%, and 99% are
plotted using green soild and dashed curves for comparisons.
Several observations are worth noted.
A variation of T significantly make the distance D
increased. We can see that in the viaduct scenario D is
close to 18 km when T = 104 dBm and UL = 90%,
whereas it reduces to 3.5 km for the case of T = 86
dBm, i.e., the difference is around 15 km. For the urban
scenario, the difference of D between -104 dBm and -
86 dBm cases is also close to 6 km when UL = 90%.
This implies that in the HSR communication system
design, a QoS-dependent (i.e., T -dependent) base station
arrangement can be used. For example, when the train
is leaving station with low moving speed, a small T
is acceptable as the margin for high mobility is not
necessary and a large separation distance between two
neighboring base stations can be used.
(17) Significant differences of D among different HSR sce-
narios are observed. The viaduct, with clear LOS path
and few scatterers (i.e., the best channel quality), has
the largest D, whereas the urban and cutting scenarios
lead to small D due to huge propagation loss and strong
shadowing effects. The curves between suburban and
rural are close to each other, this is because these two
scenarios generally have similar channel conditions as
reported in [13], [14]. Most HSR lines are over 500 km
long and different scenarios are randomly distributed, a
non-even (scenario-dependent) base station arrangement
is thus required.
D is found to be significantly affected by T , which
is not surprising as a lower T corresponds to a larger
propagation loss that the system can handle. However,
we note that different scenarios generally have different
(18)
sensitivities to T . For example, urban scenario has the
smallest D when T = 104 dBm, whereas D under
cutting scenario reduces more rapidly than D under urban
scenario when T increases. This should be carefully
considered in the system design.
Table III summarizes the estimated D with T and UL
for different HSR scenarios at 930 MHz. Lower values of
UL are not considered in the comparison, as HSR has strict
requirement of safety. In general, huge differences of D
are observed for different cases of scenarios, T , and UL ,
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

 

 

 

3HUFHQWDJHRI&RYHUDJH$UHD
3HUFHQWDJHRI&RYHUDJH$UHD

 

 

 

 9LDGXFW  9LDGXFW

&XWWLQJ &XWWLQJ
 8UEDQ  8UEDQ
6XEXUEDQ 6XEXUEDQ
 5XUDO  5XUDO
 
   
 
 
                  
0D[LPXP&RPPXQLFDWLRQ'LVWDQFH>NP@ 0D[LPXP&RPPXQLFDWLRQ'LVWDQFH>NP@
(a) (b)





3HUFHQWDJHRI&RYHUDJH$UHD







 9LDGXFW
&XWWLQJ
 8UEDQ
6XEXUEDQ
 5XUDO

 


        
0D[LPXP&RPPXQLFDWLRQ'LVWDQFH>NP@

(c)

Fig. 5: (a) Coverage area predictions for the five typical HSR scenarios at 930 MHz, where T = 104 dBm. (b) Coverage
area predictions for the five typical HSR scenarios at 930 MHz, where T = 92 dBm. (c) Coverage area predictions for the
five typical HSR scenarios at 930 MHz, where T = 86 dBm.

which should be carefully considered when designing a HSR provide much higher data rate. Therefore, we compare the
communication system in such composite scenarios. maximum communication distance for both of the 450 MHz,
2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands in this section.
IV. IMPACT OF W ORKING F REQUENCY ON THE To coincide with the actual measurement data, in our
D ETERMINATION OF C ELL C OVERAGE A REA simulation, the antenna heights of the base station and the
In this section, we use the above method to evaluate mobile station are set to be 25 m and 4 m, respectively. Pout,e
the maximum communication distance for the future HSR is set between 0 and 1, PTX + G = 30 dBm. The frequency
communications. As indicated in [14], the life cycle of GSM- bands of 450 MHz, 930 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz are
R is coming to an end in 2025 and the next generation mobile simulated. Note that in this section we still use the models
communication systems for HSR has been widely discussed. in [27][29] as the path loss prediction models, which include
A consensus has been achieved that HSR communications will the frequency factor to extend the model to different frequency
bypass the third-generation mobile communication system and bands. Fig. 6(a) and Fig. 6(b) show the example plots of UL
directly evolve to the Long Term Evolution-Railway (LTE-R) vs D for the viaduct and urban scenarios at 450 MHz, 930
[33]. LTE-R generally has the similar scenarios to GSM-R, MHz and 2.4 GHz. For similarity, we present the results when
however, different frequency band will be allocated to LTE- T = 92 dBm. It is generally observed that the distance D
R. Two bands have been widely suggested: 450 MHz, which can be increased by 6-10 km at the 450 MHz band compared
has less propagation loss and offers longer distance coverage; with that at the 2.4 GHz band, and the maximum distance
2.4 GHz, which has larger bandwidth and offers a higher data difference arrives at 13 km when it is at the 5.8 GHz, as
rate. As for future 5G for railway (5G-R) [5], it may use much is shown in Fig. 7(a). A lower frequency band reduces the
higher working frequency bands such as 5.8 GHz or more to number of the required base stations and leads to a significant

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

TABLE III: Evaluation of the maximum communication distance at 930 MHz for different HSR scenarios
Received signal Percentage of
Viaduct Cutting Urban Suburban Rural
threshold coverage area
90% 16.60 km 10.26 km 8.34 km 12.96 km 12.74 km
T = 104 dBm 95% 14.51 km 8.79 km 7.37 km 11.04 km 11.21 km
99% 11.56 km 6.76 km 5.98 km 8.36 km 9.06 km
90% 5.77 km 3.90 km 3.70 km 5.00 km 4.92 km
T = 92 dBm 95% 5.04 km 3.34 km 3.26 km 4.26 km 4.33 km
99% 4.02 km 2.56 km 2.65 km 3.23 km 3.50 km
90% 3.40 km 2.40 km 2.46 km 3.11 km 3.06 km
T = 86 dBm 95% 2.97 km 2.06 km 2.17 km 2.65 km 2.69 km
99% 2.37 km 1.58 km 1.76 km 2.01 km 2.17 km

1 1

0.98 0.98
Percentage of Coverage Area

0.96

Percentage of Coverage Area

0.96

0.94 0.94

0.92 0.92

0.9 0.9

0.88 0.88
450 MHz
0.86 930 MHz 450 MHz
2.4 GHz
0.86
930 MHz
90% 2.4 GHz
0.84 95% 0.84 90%
99% 95%
0.82 0.82 99%

0.8 0.8
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Maximum Communication Distance [km] Maximum Communication Distance [km]
(a) (b)

Fig. 6: (a) Coverage area predictions for the viaduct scenario @ Max 2.4 GHz. (b) Coverage area predictions for the urban
scenario @ Max 2.4 GHz.

1 1
450 MHz 450 MHz
0.98 2.4 GHz
0.98 2.4 GHz
Percentage of Coverage Area

5.8 GHz 5.8 GHz

Percentage of Coverage Area

0.96 90% 90%

95%
0.96
95%
0.94 99% 99%
0.94
0.92 0.92
0.9 0.9
0.88 0.88
0.86 0.86
0.84 0.84
0.82 0.82
0.8 0.8
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Maximum Communication Distance [km] Maximum Communication Distance [km]
(a) (b)

Fig. 7: (a) Coverage area predictions for the viaduct scenario @ Max 5.8 GHz. (b) Coverage area predictions for the urban
scenario @ Max 5.8 GHz.

reduction of implementation cost. example, when using 2.4 GHz, D is around 2.2 km and 1.8 km
for the viaduct and urban scenarios, respectively (when UL =
It is also noteworthy that by using higher frequency band, 90%), i.e., the difference of D is around 0.4 km; whereas
the difference of D between different scenarios is reduced. For

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology

TABLE IV: Evaluation of the maximum communication distance at 450 MHz for different HSR scenarios
Received signal Percentage of
Viaduct Cutting Urban Suburban Rural
threshold coverage area
90% 34.35 km 19.97 km 14.61 km 24.94 km 24.51 km
T = 104 dBm 95% 30.02 km 17.11 km 12.89 km 21.24 km 21.57 km
99% 23.92 km 13.15 km 10.46 km 16.09 km 17.42 km
90% 11.93 km 7.58 km 6.47 km 9.63 km 9.46 km
T = 92 dBm 95% 10.42 km 6.50 km 5.71 km 8.20 km 8.33 km
99% 8.31 km 4.99 km 4.63 km 6.21 km 6.73 km
90% 7.03 km 4.67 km 4.30 km 5.98 km 5.88 km
T = 86 dBm 95% 6.14 km 4.00 km 3.80 km 5.09 km 5.17 km
99% 4.90 km 3.08 km 3.08 km 3.86 km 4.18 km

TABLE V: Evaluation of the maximum communication distance at 2.4 GHz for different HSR scenarios
Received signal Percentage of
Viaduct Cutting Urban Suburban Rural
threshold coverage area
90% 6.42 km 4.30 km 4.02 km 5.12 km 5.42 km
T = 104 dBm 95% 5.62 km 3.69 km 3.54 km 4.70 km 4.77 km
99% 4.78 km 2.83 km 2.88 km 3.56 km 3.86 km
90% 2.23 km 1.63 km 1.78 km 2.13 km 2.09 km
T = 92 dBm 95% 1.95 km 1.40 km 1.57 km 1.81 km 1.84 km
99% 1.55 km 1.07 km 1.27 km 1.37 km 1.49 km
90% 1.31 km 1.01 km 1.18 km 1.32 km 1.30 km
T = 86 dBm 95% 1.15 km 0.86 km 1.04 km 1.13 km 1.14 km
99% 0.92 km 0.66 km 0.85 km 0.85 km 0.93 km

TABLE VI: Evaluation of the maximum communication distance at 5.8 GHz for different HSR scenarios
Received signal Percentage of
Viaduct Cutting Urban Suburban Rural
threshold coverage area
90% 2.66 km 1.91 km 2.03 km 2.49 km 2.45 km
T = 104 dBm 95% 2.32 km 1.64 km 1.80 km 2.12 km 2.15 km
99% 1.85 km 1.26 km 1.46 km 1.60 km 1.74 km
90% 0.92 km 0.73 km 0.90 km 0.96 km 0.95 km
T = 92 dBm 95% 0.81 km 0.62 km 0.80 km 0.82 km 0.83 km
99% 0.64 km 0.48 km 0.65 km 0.62 km 0.67 km
90% 0.54 km 0.45 km 0.60 km 0.60 km 0.59 km
T = 86 dBm 95% 0.47 km 0.38 km 0.53 km 0.51 km 0.52 km
99% 0.38 km 0.29 km 0.43 km 0.39 km 0.42 km

when using 450 MHz, the difference of D between viaduct V. C ONCLUSIONS

and urban increases to 5.5 km. Using a higher frequency band
makes the base station arrangement easier: base stations could
be equally separated.
Table IV, Table V and Table VI summarize the estimated D
with T and UL for different HSR scenarios at 450 MHz, 2.4
GHz and 5.8 GHz, respectively. As expected, huge differences
of D are observed for the different cases of scenarios, T ,
and UL , which should be carefully considered in the system
design of the next generation mobile communication systems
for HSR.
In this paper, we derived a closed-form equation for predict-
ing the percentage of linear coverage area in the narrow-strip-
shaped HSR cells. The formula was derived from the edge
outage probability and the propagation channel parameters. It
has been found that the linear coverage in HSRs generally
has a higher percentage of coverage area compared with the
traditional circular coverage of cellular systems. Simulation
shown that an evaluation of cell coverage area using cellular
algorithm would lead to an overlaid base station arrangement
in HSRs, which implied that an over-coverage of the network
planning would occur if the link budget of the cellular systems

0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TVT.2016.2599113, IEEE
Transactions on Vehicular Technology
is directly applied for the HSR systems.
Moreover, the proposed determination of cell coverage area
was implemented to different HSR scenarios based on the pre-
sented channel models. Three determinations of the minimum
received power were introduced, followed by a comprehensive
comparison of simulated maximum communication distance. It
has been observed that the acceptable communication distance
is jointly affected by scenarios, percentage of coverage area,
and the desired minimum received power. The impact of
working frequency on the determination of cell coverage area
was investigated. It has been found that a lower frequency
band reduces the number of the required base stations and
increases the interference from the neighboring base station;
whereas base stations could be equally separated when using a
higher frequency band. The results would be very helpful for
the HSR communications system designers to gain a better tool
in the system planning either for GSM-R, LTE-R for future
5G-R.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to Yuanxuan Li, Binghao Chen,
Jinghui Lu, and other members of radio propagation group in
Beijing Jiaotong University, for the work in the site survey of
railway scenarios. They also express their many thanks to the
engineers of the Institutes of Railway Exploration and Design
in China for their richful measurement data and constructive
suggestions.
R EFERENCES
[1] R. He, B. Ai, G. Wang, K. Guan, Z. Zhong, A. F. Molisch, C. Briso,
and C. Oestges, High-speed railway communications: from GSM-R to
LTE-R, IEEE Veh. Technol. Mag., to be published.
[2] ETCS/GSM-R quality of service operational analysis, ERTMS Std,
04E117, 2010.
[3] L. Zhu, F. Yu, B. Ning, and T. Tang, Handoff performance improve-
ments in MIMO-enabled communication-based train control systems,
IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst., vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 582593, June 2012.
[4] Preliminary document for TG 4P, 04E117, 2010.
[5] B. Ai, K. Guan, M. Rupp, T. Kurner, X. Cheng, X. F. Yin, Q. Wang, G. Y.
Ma, Y. Li, L. Xiong, and J. W. Ding, Future railway services-oriented
mobile communications network, IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 53, no. 10,
pp. 7885, October 2015.
[6] B. Ai, X. Cheng, L. Yang, Z. D. Zhong, J. W. Ding, and H. Song,
Social network services for rail traffic applications, IEEE Intell. Syst.,
vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 6369, Nov 2014.
[7] G. L. Stuber, Principles of mobile communication, 2011.
[8] T. S. Rappaport et al., Wireless communications: principles and practice,
1996, vol. 2.
[9] A. Goldsmith, Wireless communications Cambridge University press,
Cambridge, UK, 2005.
[10] A. Sendonaris, E. Erkip, and B. Aazhang, User cooperation diversity.
part I. system description, IEEE Trans Commun., vol. 51, no. 11, pp.
19271938, 2003.
[11] F. Richter, A. J. Fehske, and G. P. Fettweis, Energy efficiency aspects of
base station deployment strategies for cellular networks, in Proc IEEE
70th Veh. Technol. Conf.(VTC 2009-Fall), 2009, pp. 15.
[12] V. Erceg and J. F. Whitehead, Microcell size and architecture analysis
from the propagation and capacity points of view, in Proc IEEE 44th
Veh. Technol. Conf., 1994, pp. 215219.
0018-9545 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
[13] D. O. Reudink, Properties of mobile radio propagation above 400
MHz, IEEE Trans Veh. Technol., vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 143159, 1974.
[14] B. Ai, X. Cheng, T. Kurner, Z.-D. Zhong, K. Guan, R.-S. He, L. Xiong,
D. W. Matolak, D. G. Michelson, and C. Briso-Rodriguez, Challenges
toward wireless communications for high-speed railway, IEEE Trans
Intell. Transp. Syst., vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 21432158, 2014.
[15] B. Ai, R. He, Z. Zhong, K. Guan, B. Chen, P. Liu, and Y. Li,
Radio wave propagation scene partitioning for high-speed rails, Int. J.
Antennas Propag., vol. 1072-1075, 2012.
[16] R. He, O. Renaudin, V.-M. Kolmonen, K. Haneda, Z. Zhong, B. Ai,
and C. Oestges, A dynamic wideband directional channel model for
vehicle-to-vehicle communications, IEEE Trans Ind. Electron., vol. 62,
no. 12, pp. 78707882, December 2015.
[17] R. He, O. Renaudin, V.-M. Kolmonen, K. Haneda, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and
C. Oestges, Characterization of quasi-stationarity regions for vehicle-
to-vehicle radio channels, IEEE Trans Antennas Propag., vol. 63, no. 5,
pp. 22372251, May 2015.
[18] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and J. Ding, Propagation measurements and
analysis for high-speed railway cutting scenario, Electron. Lett., vol. 47,
no. 21, pp. 11671168, 2011.
[19] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, J. Ding, Y. Yang, and A. F. Molisch, Short-term
fading behavior in high-speed railway cutting scenario: Measurements,
analysis, and statistical models, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 61,
no. 4, pp. 22092222, 2013.
[20] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and J. Ding, An empirical path Loss model
and fading analysis for high-speed railway viaduct scenarios, IEEE
Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 808812, 2011.
[21] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, G. Wang, J. Ding, and A. F. Molisch,
Measurements and analysis of propagation channels in high-speed
railway viaducts, IEEE Trans Wireless Commun., vol. 12, no. 2, pp.
794805, 2013.
[22] K. Guan, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, R. He, B. Chen, Y. Li, and C. Briso-
Rodriguez, Complete propagation model in tunnels, IEEE Antennas
Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 12, pp. 741744, 2013.
[23] K. Guan, Z. Zhong, J. Alonso, C. Briso-Rodrguez et al., Measurement
of distributed antenna systems at 2.4 GHz in a realistic subway tunnel
environment, IEEE Trans Veh. Technol., vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 834837,
2012.
[24] B. Ai, K. Guan, D. Zhong, C. Lopez, L. Zhang, C. Briso-Rodriguez, and
R. He, Measurement and analysis of extra propagation loss of tunnel
curve, IEEE Trans Veh. Technol., no. 99, pp. 11, 2015.
[25] K. Guan, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and T. Kurner, Propagation measurements
and modeling of crossing bridges on high-speed railway at 930 MHz,
IEEE Trans Veh. Technol., vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 502517, 2014.
[26] K. Guan, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and T. Kurner, Propagation measurements
and analysis for train stations of high-speed railway at 930 MHz, IEEE
Trans Veh. Technol., vol. 63, no. 8, pp. 34993516, 2014.
[27] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, J. Ding, W. Jiang, H. Zhang, and X. Li, A
standardized path loss model for the GSM-railway based high-speed
railway communication systems, in Proc IEEE 79th Veh. Technol. Conf.
(VTC Spring), 2014, pp. 15.
[28] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and K. Guan, Reducing cost of the high-speed
railway communications: from propagation channel view, IEEE Trans.
Intell. Transp. Syst., vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 20502060, August 2015.
[29] R. He, Z. Zhong, B. Ai, and C. Oestges, Shadow fading correlation in
high-speed railway environments, IEEE Trans Veh. Technol., vol. 64,
no. 7, pp. 27622772, July 2015.
[30] ECC162, Practical mechanism to improve the compatibility between
GSM-R and public mobile networks and guidance on practical coordi-
nation, Electronic Communications Committee Report, pp. 1-54, Tech.
Rep., 2011.
[31] UIC, System requirements specification of European integrated railway
radio enhanced network, GSM-R Operators Group Report,, pp. 1170,
2012.
[32] X. L. Z. Zhong and W. Jiang, Integrated digital mobile communication
system for railway. Railway publishing corporation of China, in Proc.
ICCMC, Valencia, Spain,, 2011, pp. 461464.
[33] K. Guan, Z. Zhong, and B. Ai, Assessment of LTE-R using high
speed railway channel model, in Proc 3rd Int. Conf. Commun. Mobile
Computing (CMC), 2011, pp. 461464.