IEEE 1473: An Open-Source Communications Protocol for Railway Vehicles

The open Standard IEEE 1473 protocol for railway vehicles was discussed. IEEE 1473 is the Standard for Communications Protocol Abroad Trains which is used on passenger rail vehicles in North America. IEEE 1473 comprises of two variants, the type T and type L standards. The type T bus protocol determines the position and orientation of each vehicle on the train, while type L protocol permits applications to receive and send messages irrespective of network topology. The mixing of type T and L networks of IEEE 1473 via a top-level gateway architecture offers increased safety and relibability features.