http://zqb.cyol.com/html/2013-10/27/nw.D110000zgqnb_20131027_4-03.htm

When people are still exclaiming over the rail transit extending in all directions in Beijing, Gao Chunhai has drawn such an outline in his mind: unmanned system would penetrate into various fields of people’s life in a few years. Driverless metro parks in a fixed position, shuttle bus runs freely between airport terminals, and automatic shuttle buses deliver people between communities and adjacent stations on time. Moreover, the air rail transit system will become one of the traffic arteries of a city. Airbus will pick up and send passengers at each station on time like today’s buses. The glass display screen of each airbus will mark the position of virtual traffic light to ensure the smooth traffic of “air passage”.

There are childlike sincerity and expectation in his eyes, the president of Traffic Control Technology Co., Ltd., when looking forward to the development prospect of rail transit in the future.

After graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University in 1993, Gao Chunhai stayed in the university for teaching. At that time, he just wanted to be a good teacher in a down-to-earth way. “However, you would change your idea gradually if you stay in such an environment for a long time. Whenever introducing new technologies from foreign countries, you will realize that our country is ‘treated unfairly’. To introduce a new technology, we have to negotiate with foreigners with low profile and dignity, but they are still unwilling to sell the real core technology to you.” Gao Chunhai said.

He told the reporter that in the past ten years, the latest CBTC system (Communication Based Train Control) had been applied for more than 98% of new or reconstructed rail transit lines in Beijing and even in China. Taking Beijing Subway as an example, the Alston CBTC core system of Line 2 and Capital Airport Express), the Thales CBTC core system of Line 4 and the Siemens CBTC core system of Line 10 are all introduced from abroad.

“I really hope we could have a self-developed system.” Since then, Gao Chunhai decided to develop a Chinese rail transit control system.

On December 4, 2009, Traffic Control Technology Co., Ltd. was established. Gao Chunhai said that the mission of company was to establish a train operation control system core technology, product and standard system applicable to the three fields of urban rail transit, maglev and railway, and construct the industry architecture of rail transit CBTC signal system in China.

At the end of 2010, Beijing Subway Yizhuang Line and Changping Line were put into operation successfully. Such a breakthrough means that TCT mastering the self-developed CBTC core technology solves the technical problems restricting the technical development of domestic rail transit signal such as high-density dynamic tracking interval control, speed safety protection control and high-precision train safety positioning related to CBTC system, and realizes the dream of generations of signal people.

This CBTC system is called the “brain and neural” of rail transit traveling system and used for guaranteeing train operation in the minimum safe spacing and maximum transport capacity.

“For example, if there are two trains running on the metro line, passengers hope that the train could run faster, but how to ensure the operation safety in such a high density? Therefore, this control system is to prevent collision and overspeed of trains in such a high density.” Gao Chunhai said that CBTC system was equivalent to the human brain and neural system and guided the operation of all vehicles on the line.

“Taking metro as an example, there are so many metro lines and vehicles in the network system, if a vehicle stops operation on the line due to faults, all the vehicles in the network will be affected at once. Therefore, it is the core function of CBTC to coordinate vehicles of all stations, control the vehicle speed and prevent possible collision due to stop operation of a vehicle without affecting the operation of whole rail system.”

Gao Chunhai said that today’s independent innovation had realized functionalization, but the difficulty was how to ensure the operation reliability, availability and safety and how to control risks. “Therefore, independent innovation of a complex system cannot be realized by working behind a closed door, but requires a methodology. Generally, a large-scale system shall be equipped with an innovation system and method, but the most difficult thing is how to make users trust in such a system.”

He likes to explain the system theory to his students and employees with “modern kitchen theory” superficially. In his opinion, the design system is like cooking a dish in the kitchen: it seems that there is no way to start, but as long as you do it step by step, “ingredients”, “cooking oil”, proper heat control and excellent cooking skills of the chef will definitely make the “dish” delicious.

“If each part is qualified, the whole system will be qualified as well.” By adhering this principle, Gao Chunhai boldly let his students join the development of CBTC system.

These fledging doctoral and master students were respectively responsible for a certain part of system development. “The process has been defined by experienced researchers, students could not know the process design of whole system, but they could do well in specific tasks allocated to them”. Everyone just needs to guarantee his own part, which not only makes core researchers have more time to tackle with core difficulty problems, but also help students become more proficient in his own part and achieve higher efficiency”.

At present, Gao Chunhai still works in the university but he gives fewer lectures than before. He said that after teaching so many years of engineering theory, now he was more willing to exchange his entrepreneurial experience with students, give suggestions for their dream realizing and teach them "system theory".

“Today, most young people have great passions and motivation to start a business. They all have a lofty ideal, but sometimes they lack of systematic ideas and an overall situation viewpoint. Therefore, they often feel puzzled when starting a business. In fact, all the problems we encountered can be solved as long as we make preparations in advance, use correct methods, decompose the tasks, identify, summarize and classify the risks and find the most suitable solutions.” Gao Chunhai said.