ATM – Milan Metro on Teldat’s onboard SD-WAN
ATM – Milan Metro adopted a Teldat’s onboard SD-WAN solution for full visibility, network management, segmentation and isolated traffic for their new Hitachi trains.
Client Summary
Founded in 1931, Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM) is the municipal public transport operator for Milan and 46 surrounding municipalities. It’s Italy’s leading public transport company. Owned by the Municipality of Milan, ATM operates an integrated network of five metro lines, alongside extensive tram, bus and trolleybus services that move over three million passengers each day. Its expertise extends internationally, managing the award winning driverless metro network in Copenhagen since 2008 and Thessaloniki’s automated system since 2024. With 11,000 employees, ATM places innovation, sustainability and reliability at the core of its mobility strategy.
Summary
Challenge
- Network system, to manage all the real time data and information from trains, with Hitachi’s strict requirements.
- Online communication system on the trains whilst in motion with full packet non-loss & maximum redundancy via 4G.
- Collect the information and data from onboard moving trains and make it reach all three ATM data centers.
- Handling CCTV video, Passenger Information Systems, and Hitachi diagnostic sensors and other train diagnostics.
Solution
- Teldat SD-WAN solution offers full visibility and network management, as well as segmentation and isolated traffic.
- Hitachi trains are the remote sites of this project with 4G connectivity towards each of the three ATM data centers.
- Three ATM data centers each had two Atlas-840 firewalls for complete redundancy, high performance & low latency.
- Hardware on trains uses VRRP to segment data traffic and is also used as a backup for other segmented traffic.
Results
- Teldat SD-WAN solution was successfully certified to work on Hitachi trains, whilst competitor solutions had failed.
- ATM can now monitor and manage their Metro and Bus network from a single pane of glass platform (Teldat’s CNM).
- ATM’s technical objectives achieved: zero packet loss, full redundancy, maximum segmentation and service isolation.
- Teldat R&D team adapted Teldat’s OSDx operating system to work on third-party hardware onboard the Hitachi trains.
Why Teldat?
ATM chose the Teldat solution because we were able to offer a tailor-made SD-WAN solution that embraced all of the requirements that they had asked for. Additionally, since 2015, Teldat had worked with ATM deploying H2-Automotive+ onboard firewalls on over 600 buses, that belong to ATM, the same organization that runs the Metro system in Milan.
During these last ten years, Teldat onboard solutions have proved to be reliable, trust worthy equipment and technology. Apart from having had an outstanding experience with Teldat, ATM had received an excellent local support from our partner in Milan ER Tlc, which is always an important point to mention in these types of case studies.
Challenge
ATM was going to put in place over 50 new Hitachi trains onto their Metro and they needed a network system to be deployed, to manage all the real time data and information that they desired. Meeting Hitachi’s strict dimensional and certification requirements for train installations and to work with the current hardware installed on each train.
Overall, ATM needed to have an online communication system on the trains whilst in motion. A system to render a full packet non-loss scenario with maximum level redundancy of the data and information coming from the trains. Hence, this meant having a backup system based on 4G.
ATM demanded a solution that could collect the information and data from onboard moving trains and make it reach three different data centers. A network system capable of handling all of the following issues. CCTV video on their trains to monitor passengers and interiors for security, deter crime, record incidents, and supports driver awareness.
Onboard Passenger Information Systems (PIS) showing different types of information on the screens within the trains; routes, next stops, arrival times, service disruptions or making voice announcements for the travelers. Additionally, the solution would collect information from onboard Hitachi diagnostic sensors that monitor critical components of any train. From brakes, wheels and motors, to doors, vibration levels or onboard temperature. All focused towards predictive maintenance analytics. Moreover, Hitachi trains had other diagnostic and measurement systems to provide track and infrastructure monitoring technology.
Teldat was able to offer an advanced SD-WAN solution that integrated seamlessly with the ATM’s three data centers and the new Hitachi trains.
Solution
ATM has very specific requirements for their solution.
Firstly, in order to manage the connectivity, Teldat establishes an SD-WAN solution that works with an SD-WAN Orchestrator and Concentrators from three data centers towards all the trains, using Teldat’s Cloud Net Manager (CNM) to provide full visibility and management of the network. Moreover, Teldat’s SD-WAN offers segmentation so that the data traffic from all different areas in this scenario are independent of each other and isolated: CCTV, PIS, Hitachi and other diagnostic solutions.
Teldat is able to treat the trains as the remote sites of this project, which establish 4G connectivity and link with ATM’s three data centers. Each of these data centers has two Teldat Atlas-840 firewalls, in compliance with their objective of having a completely redundant solution.
One of the Teldat Atlas-840 firewalls acts as the master and the other as the slave, delivering high performance and low latency. These three data centers have connections to the Hitachi Cloud and other diagnostic clouds to be able to obtain and process all the diagnostic information from the trains.
Teldat R&D was able to adapt and customize our advanced OSDx networking software to work with the third-party hardware on the trains and connect to the three ATM data centers, as well Hitachi and other diagnostic systems. All with numerous features, such IDS & IPS firewall service, QoS, policy-based routing, etc.
Moreover, using VRRP the hardware used on the trains, to work on the different types of segmented traffic, can be used as backup for other traffic. For example, Hardware that is used for CCTV is the backup hardware for the PIS and viceversa.
Results
Overall the ATM Project, deploying the Teldat SD-WAN solution on the new Hitachi Milan metro trains can be classified as a total success for various reasons:
- Teldat R&D team was able adapt Teldat’s OSDx operating system to work on third-party hardware onboard the new Hitachi metro trains.
- The Teldat SD-WAN solution was successfully certified, whilst competitor solutions had failed.
- ATM are now in a position to be able to have their Metro and Bus network monitored and managed from a single pane of glass platform (Teldat’s CNM).
- ATM has obtained all of its technical objectives: zero packet loss, full redundancy, maximum segmentation and isolation of their services.
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