Poznan. Vice-president Mariusz Wiśniewski asked PKP to explain the reasons for the failure of the train traffic control system

Mariusz Wiśniewski, the vice-president of Poznań, addressed an official letter to the Management Board of PKP PLK regarding the breakdowns occurring at the Poznań Główny station. “I am deeply concerned about the frequency of serious failures of the train traffic control system at the Poznań Główny station, as well as their scale, which causes complete communication paralysis of the largest railway junction in Poland from the point of view of the number of passengers,” Wiśniewski informed on Wednesday in social media.

The local government official asked PKP for “a detailed explanation of the reasons for the occurrence of these situations, with particular emphasis incident of July 30, 2021. It is important from the point of view of the inhabitants of Poznań, Greater Poland and people coming from Poland and abroad “- he stressed.

We informed about the failure of July 30 on tvn24.pl. At that time, around 4 p.m. a defect was found in the computer controlling the traffic control devices at the Poznań Główny station. Consequently, for three hours, rail traffic through the station was completely stopped.

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Wiśniewski in his letter indicated that he had already approached PKP with a similar case at the end of 2019. Then – as he noted – he received information about the circumstances of the failure, as well as about “implementing a number of activities in cooperation with the manufacturer of railway traffic control devices”. Wiśniewski also asks for clarification, inter alia, how the then findings affect the current event and for what reasons there are still similar failures of traffic control devices. “I am obliged to note that in the event of such serious failures of the control system, due to the inability to run rail traffic through the Poznań Główny station, the public transport is heavily loaded. What is worse, passengers have a problem not only with reaching destinations in the right time, but also usually do not know the date of repairing the damaged system “- wrote Wiśniewski.

He also pointed out that in the event of a breakdown in 2019, the trains ended their run at stations near Poznań and were then set off in the opposite direction, which – as he explained – “obviously had serious consequences for public transport, but gave passengers a chance to reach their destination” .

During the crash on July 30, the situation was completely different. “(…) apart from completely canceled connections, the trains waited for the possibility of reaching the center of the junction within a radius of 100 km from Poznań, which ended with delays of more than 8 hours! difficult or simply impossible “- he emphasized.

Radosław Śledziński from the PKP PLK press team, when asked about the causes of the failure on Friday at the Poznań Główny station, said that “Thales’ service analyzes the cause of the failure in detail”. As he pointed out, “the system was re-tested. Determining the cause will allow for the development of preventive measures and the elimination of possible failures in the future.” Śledziński explained that “the defect of the devices (srk) responsible for traffic safety, until the repair is often associated with changes in the running of trains. To minimize these changes, special measures are introduced, including a team consisting of representatives of PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe. SA and carriers, who coordinated – if possible – the station’s work “. “PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe SA, in order to eliminate difficult situations, introduced 24/7 strict supervision over the system and quick response to computer instability. In September 2020, the software was updated and diagnosed faults were removed. The infrastructure manager cooperates with device manufacturers on an ongoing basis” – he added . He also noted that an agreement was signed with Thales Polska, which includes, among others: comprehensive equipment checking – inspections and controls, ongoing repairs, provision of spare parts, event analysis, confirmed by quarterly reports in accordance with the approved schedule, services available around the clock, which enable registration of service requests and telephone support for use in removing the causes of system faults. “In accordance with the contract, the manufacturer bears penalties for failure to meet the deadline for removing defects” – emphasized Śledziński.