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INTEGRATION OF GIS, GPS AND GSM 
FOR THE QINGHAI-TIBET RAILWAY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT PLANNING 
Bin Wang“, Qingchao Wei", Qulin Tan", Shonglin Yang?, Baigen Cai" 
* School of Civil Engineering & Architecture, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China - jwpeng@sina.com 
® School of Electronics and Information Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China — 
bgcai(@center.njtu.edu.cn 
KEY WORDS: Management, Planning, Integration, GIS, GPS 
ABSTRACT: 
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway is a key project during China's Tenth Five-Year Plan period. It will be the longest and most elevated 
railroad built on highlands in the world. The construction and transport conditions are so complicated, such as permafrost, bitter 
coldness, lack of oxygen and ecological fragility. Therefore advanced technical measures and methods have been used during the 
construction. Furthermore, we have carried out Qinghai-Tibet Railway information management planning (QTIMP) based mainly on 
the G3 technique integration: geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), and global system for mobile 
communication (GSM) to ensure safe transportation and prompt maintenance of Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The paper is focused on the 
latter. In this paper, we briefly introduces Qinghai-Tibet Railway project, emphasizes the need of QTIMP in section one. Section 
two gives an overview of the G3 technique integration. Section three describes the architecture of QTIMP. Section four primarily 
deals with the applications of G3 technique integration to QTIMP. In this section the paper is mainly focused on the visualization of 
geographical information at a control centre, on the design of the on-board unit and on the interaction and communication between 
on-board units and the control centre. Finally, a brief discussion leads to conclusions and some key issues for future research. 
1. INTRODUCTION during the construction (Tsai, S., 2003). Meanwhile, we have 
carried out. QTIMP based mainly on the G3 technique 
integration to ensure safe transportation and prompt 
maintenance of Qinghai-Tibet Railway. 
The Qinghai-Tibet is a key project in the China's Tenth Five- 
Plan (2001-2005) period. The railway starts at Xining (the 
capital of Qinghai province), and terminates Lhasa (the regional 
capital of Tibet), with a total length of 1,956km. The first 
814km section from Xining to Golmud, 2. G3 OVERVIEW 
a traffic hub in the western part of Qinghai province, opened to 
traffic in 1984. In the second part of the project, a 1,142km- G3 integrates three system technologies: geographic 
long new line (called Golmud-Lhasa section) consists of the information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), and 
32km section from Golmud to Nanshankou to be upgrade and global system for mobile communication (GSM) to provide an 
the 1,110km Nanshankou-Lhasa to be built. The new line extremely accurate location-tracking system. 
opened to construct in June, 2001, and is due to enter service in 
2007. It is the first railroad to Tibet. The building of this line is 2. GIS 
of major political and economic significance. It will contribute 
substantially to fostering local market development, creating GIS, a set of software tools, allows analysis of different data 
jobs and bringing new opportunities for the regions along the types to be linked to geographic maps. This technology includes 
line. input tools, a database management system, queries, analysis, 
visualization tools, and a graphical user interface. GIS stores 
The Golmud-Lhasa section is a mountainous section running attribute information as a collection of thematic layers linked 
through the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The construction and together by spatial information. Users can perform common 
transport conditions are so complicated, such as permafrost, database operations such as queries and statistics, and view the 
bitter coldness, lack of oxygen and ecological fragility, etc. results in geographic maps (Samah ct al., 2000). A GIS usually 
Permafrost (thawing and subsidence, freezing and swelling) provides a number of tools for the analysis of spatial networks 
affects the stability and safety of railway engineering structures (e.g. railroad networks). 
and lead to uneven subsidence. Lack of oxygen not only affects 
people’s health and productivity, but also reduces the 2.0 GPS 
performance of diesel locomotives and engineering equipment. 
To overcome the particular topological conditions of Tibet, it is 
firstly vital to guarantee the health and safety of the 
constructors, railway operating staff and the travelling public by 
using modern safety installations. Secondly, the building 
machinery and operating equipment must be specially designed 
for working in high mountain areas. Thirdly, the operating 
system must be adapted to the highland conditions. Therefore, 
advanced technical measures and methods have been used 
GPS is a satellite navigation system operated by U.S. 
Department of Defence. The overall GPS system includes 24 
navigational orbiting satellites, six earth control stations, and 
thousands of wuser-owned receivers. Positioning signals 
originating from 24 satellites are distributed in such way that at 
least four of them are visible from any point of the earth. The 
satellites transmit time information derived from their internal 
atomic clocks along with data on their momentary positions. A 
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