ABSTRACT
Opening of the Singapore North East Line (NEL) Mass Rapid Transit System marks a significant milestone in the Public Transport System of Singapore. Apart from being the world’s first driverless heavy metro system, it is also the first heavy metro system in Singapore that is equipped with a fully Integrated Supervisory Control System.
The NEL Supervisory Control System integrates the control and monitoring functions of major mission critical systems for railway operations such as Signalling, Rolling Stock, Power and Communication Systems. In order to achieve the unique features of full integration and driverless operation, vast amount of complex system functions and customized interfacing software are developed and embedded into the design of the NEL system, both at station and at onboard train levels.
To equip the maintainer with the capability to diagnose and rectify failures more effectively, the OEMs have provided some basic software diagnostic tools to assist the fault-finding process. However, the investigation of failures in the fully integrated and software driven system remains a significant challenge to the maintainers. Apart from having to equip himself with the functional and hardware knowledge of the system, the maintainer would also have to equip himself with sufficient system software knowledge to enable him to perform basic data analysis and to identify the cause of failure that could be either due to a simple hardware failure or a software glitch.
