The failure of the Centralized Transit Center of Rodalies at Estación de Francia was caused by a software provider error, an incident that affected the core control of the railway network and forced a review of the status of all lines before recovering service.
This center manages every day around 1,200 trains and maintains about 60 convoys circulating simultaneously, which gives an idea of the impact that any breakdown can have at this strategic point of the Catalan network.
A key system for railway circulation
The CTC of Estación de Francia is one of the basic enclaves for the management of Rodalies. From there, circulation is supervised and operational responses are activated before any incident that affects railway traffic.
Sources from Adif maintain that the installed machinery is state-of-the-art and defend that there is no software provider that can do it better. The incident, however, originated precisely in that area, that of the program that supports the system.
The backup is in Sants, but shares the same software
The network has a backup system, known internally as Plan B, which is duplicated at Sants station. That resource is designed to provide continuity to the service if the main machinery fails.
The problem, according to the same sources, is that in the face of a software error that alternative becomes limited because duplications are made for the machines, but the program is the same. That is to say, the backup replicates the technical structure, but does not prevent a crash if the origin is in the shared IT support.
Progressive recovery of the service
Once all lines of the railway network have been reviewed, 94% of the global train offer is currently in operation. The recovery has been consolidating after checking the state of the infrastructure and the regulation systems.
The Circulation Regulation Center works coordinated with the Operations Management Center, located at Clot station, from where part of the operational decisions are articulated to maintain circulation and respond to incidents on the fly.
A point of immediate alert for incidents in the network
In addition to managing ordinary traffic, the CTC plays a relevant role in the early detection of problems on the infrastructure. Among them, cable thefts, since the first alarm is received in this center and allows activating the technical and operational response quickly.
The incident leaves in evidence the dependence of the railway system on the programs that sustain the daily regulation of the service. Although the network has recovered most of its offer, the episode reopens the focus on the response capacity to failures that do not affect the physical machinery, but the software that coordinates the entire operation.