New Delhi

A year after it got the nod for a CBTC (communications based train control) system for the Hyderabad Metro rail, French technology major Thales will replicate this in Japan, becoming the first non-Japanese company to enter the country’s signalling space.

Thales has been selected by the East Japan Railway Company, known as JR East, to design a CBTC system for the Joban line in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, a company statement said.

“JR East’s objective is to replace its current conventional automatic train control system and acquire a state-of-the-art system with an optimised life cycle cost in order to improve transportation systems in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area,” the statement added.

The 30-km line runs from Ayase to Toride with 14 stations and 70 trains.

Since the 1980s, Thales “has been a pioneer in CBTC technology, which was originally developed without the need for track circuits or secondary detection. One of the key benefits of this technology is therefore that it requires less equipment and optimises the line’s maintenance accordingly, which will meet JR East’s goal”, the statement said.

Thales’s CBTC system has been proven worldwide on over 55 projects to date and operates on more than 1,300 km of track in major urban centers around the world, carrying an estimated 3 billion passengers annually, it added.

“With this contract, Thales becomes the first non-Japanese company to enter the Japanese signalling market, via the city of Tokyo, home to the world’s busiest railway network. Thales is pleased to bring its latest signalling technology and experience in urban rail systems modernisation to a country that already benefits from great advances in the transport sector,” Thales country director in Japan Jean-Louis Moraud said.

Thales is a global technology leader in the aerospace, transportation and defence & security markets. In 2012, the company generated revenues of 14.2 billion euros with 65,000 employees in 56 countries.

It set up operations in India in 1953. Today, the company has over 300 employees operating out of its offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Visakhapatnam and Gwalior to serve the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, the Indian Navy and civil customers.