ZigBee Efficiency Assessment for Additional Subway Safety Communications in Tunnel Environments

The paper investigates the possibility of employing non-dedicated short range, energy-efficient communications, such as ZigBee, for additional safety applications in a subway environment. Early driver warning on entering railway station in case of an obstacle on the rails, safety warning on passengers' safety and security etc. are applications that aren't usually implemented in the normal signaling processes on subway line. Field experiments on ZigBee performed in real tunnel environment demonstrate the usability of this communication technology for additional applications, with the advantage of relieving the native subway signaling system from dedicated appliance installation and interfering.