The Western Australia Public Transport Authority (PTA) has restarted its long-stalled network replacement project, with Nokia announcing the technologies that will provide high-speed digital radio communication to serve 250km of railway track and tunnels.
The PTA had signed Huawei to build the $136 million network in 2018, only to abandon it in 2020 due to US trade restrictions imposed on the Chinese vendor in 2019.
At the time, the PTA and Huawei jointly explained that America’s national security requirements created a “force majeure event” that gave the two parties no choice but to abandon the project.
The PTA, Huawei, and construction company UGL said they would look for a way to deliver the project without breaching US restrictions, but that proved impossible.
In June, transport minister Rita Saffioti told the WA Legislative Assembly (pdf) that the arrangement was terminated with the government paying $6.6 million to the Huawei/UGL consortium.
At the time, she told parliament Nokia would be paid $327 million – $121 million more than the original Huawei contract – to build the network, the details of which Nokia announced yesterday.
The project includes designing and building the network, along with five years of maintenance and options for two five-year extensions.
The network covers more than 160 LTE/4.9G radio sites for the METRONET infrastructure and public transport program.
It will also support what the PTA calls a Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) high capacity signalling system.
Calling the project “prestigious”, Rob McCabe, head of enterprise for Oceania at Nokia, highlighted the PTA’s need for more accurate signalling, “leading to improved experience and safety”.
The PTA currently has a narrowband analogue system unable to support mission-critical voice, high-speed data and video services, and the new network also needs to meet the demands of the federal Critical Infrastructure Act, so the PTA’s requirements also include scope to include a cyber security fabric across all solution elements.
The network is due to enter service in 2025.
