In an increasingly demanding marketplace that will put great strain on railway services, research on broadband wireless communication must continue to strive for improvement. Based on the mature narrowband GSM technology, Global System for Mobile Communications-Railways (GSM-R) has been deployed both for operational and voice communications. Although GSM-R fulfills the requirements of current railway services, it imposes limited capacity and high costs that restrict enhancements of operational efficiency, passenger security and transport quality. 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) is expected to be the natural successor of GSM-R not only for its technical advantages and increasing performance, but also due to the current evolution of general-purpose communication systems. This paper examines the key features of LTE as well as its technical ability to support both the migration of current railway services and the provisioning of future ones.

翻译：在日益严苛的市场需求对铁路服务构成巨大压力的背景下，宽带无线通信的研究必须持续追求改进。基于成熟的窄带GSM技术，铁路全球移动通信系统（GSM-R）已部署用于运营和语音通信。尽管GSM-R满足了当前铁路服务的要求，但其容量有限且成本高昂，限制了运营效率、乘客安全性和运输质量的提升。4G长期演进（LTE）预计将成为GSM-R的自然继承者，这不仅是因为其技术优势与性能提升，还源于通用通信系统的当前演进趋势。本文探讨了LTE的关键特性及其在支持当前铁路服务迁移和未来服务提供方面的技术能力。