LZB is from the 60s, and the supposed replacement ETCS is an absolute nightmare mandate from the EU. There are lots of control systems, but you can’t get funding for a different non-ETCS from the EU. Similar outages have happened in Germany which have resulted in near misses.
In theory, they would have avoided an accident if all trains had started again, but that’s the very reason they shouldn’t have, or at least only at low speed. You cannot guarantee that will be the case. Stopped trains are really annoying, but they don’t crash, and everyone on those trains would’ve rather stayed.
It’s been extremely slow to develop (30+ years) and it’s being forced by funding rules rather than trying to develop the best intercompatible standard on the open market.
It’s like the phones-must-have-USB-C mandate, where the EU mandates a specific technology rather than, say, a working group that picks the best standard. But in the case of USB-C, it already existed and was relatively easy to swap in for the incompatible standards with respect to price, manufacturing etc. So even though it is generally a bad idea to mandate a specific technology, it’s fine.
With ETCS, it’s not like they have banned competing technologies, but they have put their thumb on the scale in favour of ETCS in a way that makes it more economically attractive. But it’s an extremely slowly evolving standard, and it’s not better than competing systems, in fact part of the slow down is that it keeps getting updated to better compete, leaving a compatibility trail behind it. Essentially this increases red tape to any paths towards innovation or improvement, and a lot of places are just sticking with their aging systems… which may be a problem.
trying to develop the best intercompatible standard on the open market.
How would you, actually, achieve this? How would the open market develop a good intercompatible standard that then everyone would use?
This is the approach taken with the automatic cargo wagon couplers, the transition been going on for about four decades now and there are basically zero results. The open market cannot seem to achieve any results whatsoever. There’s always some company that does its own thing. Such as Apple was with phone chargers.
it is generally a bad idea to mandate a specific technology
Why is it a bad idea? Can you give any examples of where it has been a bad idea? I can recognize a case where it was a very good idea: USB-C.
LZB is from the 60s, and the supposed replacement ETCS is an absolute nightmare mandate from the EU. There are lots of control systems, but you can’t get funding for a different non-ETCS from the EU. Similar outages have happened in Germany which have resulted in near misses.
In theory, they would have avoided an accident if all trains had started again, but that’s the very reason they shouldn’t have, or at least only at low speed. You cannot guarantee that will be the case. Stopped trains are really annoying, but they don’t crash, and everyone on those trains would’ve rather stayed.
What makes it a nightmare mandate?
It’s been extremely slow to develop (30+ years) and it’s being forced by funding rules rather than trying to develop the best intercompatible standard on the open market.
It’s like the phones-must-have-USB-C mandate, where the EU mandates a specific technology rather than, say, a working group that picks the best standard. But in the case of USB-C, it already existed and was relatively easy to swap in for the incompatible standards with respect to price, manufacturing etc. So even though it is generally a bad idea to mandate a specific technology, it’s fine.
With ETCS, it’s not like they have banned competing technologies, but they have put their thumb on the scale in favour of ETCS in a way that makes it more economically attractive. But it’s an extremely slowly evolving standard, and it’s not better than competing systems, in fact part of the slow down is that it keeps getting updated to better compete, leaving a compatibility trail behind it. Essentially this increases red tape to any paths towards innovation or improvement, and a lot of places are just sticking with their aging systems… which may be a problem.
How would you, actually, achieve this? How would the open market develop a good intercompatible standard that then everyone would use?
This is the approach taken with the automatic cargo wagon couplers, the transition been going on for about four decades now and there are basically zero results. The open market cannot seem to achieve any results whatsoever. There’s always some company that does its own thing. Such as Apple was with phone chargers.
Why is it a bad idea? Can you give any examples of where it has been a bad idea? I can recognize a case where it was a very good idea: USB-C.