Why track circuit monitoring matters for railway safety and punctuality
Track circuits detect the presence or absence of a train on the rails, informing signalers and controlling signals accordingly. They are critical to both safety and operational continuity: a single track circuit failure causes service interruption, added maintenance cost, and delays for passengers.
Alpha Innovations addresses this challenge on two fronts: through the Jade family of track circuits themselves, engineered for extreme reliability, and through Compas (site-level monitoring) and Inview MESH (multi-site management), which turn every device into a source of real-time, actionable data.
The Challenge: Monitoring 16,000+ track circuits in real time across Belgium
Track circuit devices are installed every 1 to 2 kilometers along the rail network. In Belgium alone, that amounts to more than 16,000 devices scattered across the territory, excluding metros and trams.
These devices are highly critical and must be:
- Monitored in real time from the control room
- Remotely accessible
- A source of alarms, events, and data that are accurate, structured, and fully manageable — by operators and by external systems alike
At the same time, the infrastructure operating these devices must withstand extreme conditions over decades of service, without the cost and disruption of premature replacement.
The Solution: Jade track circuits, Compas and Inview MESH
Extreme engineering at the device level: Jade track circuits
Developed in close collaboration with our partner Alstom for Infrabel, the Jade track circuits are built to defy climatic extremes, operating flawlessly from -25°C to +70°C. Where standard solutions fail, Jade guarantees service continuity.
Each unit carries a certified 30-year lifecycle, eliminating planned obsolescence and delivering long-term profitability for the operator — a model now being scaled through a 10,000-unit deployment of Jade 3 over 10 years in partnership with Infrabel and Alstom.
Real-time monitoring at site level: Compas
Compas, Alpha Innovations' site monitoring and control solution, connects in real time to 6 pairs of track circuit devices (12 track circuits). Acting as an edge device, it locally structures and pre-processes signal data, offering:
- A responsive web interface accessible from any device — PC, tablet, or smartphone
- Comprehensive dashboards for supervision and data analysis
- Logs and reports
- Configurable alarms and notifications
Centralized management at network level: Inview MESH
Inview MESH connects in real time to every Compas unit across the territory, gathering, structuring, and processing data, and giving maintenance, operations, and external systems the access they need. It enables:
- Creation and management of alerts, alarms, and events — globally, by cluster, or by site
- Global dashboards and reports
- Full, open data access
- Remote configuration and update of site controllers — globally, by cluster, or by site
Results: How predictive maintenance improves railway punctuality
Locating trains in real time and eliminate failures, shifting maintenance from reactive repair to proactive anticipation. Combined with the reliability of the Jade hardware, this predictive approach is a direct contributor to the improving punctuality trend on the Belgian network — from 87.5% to 91.7% in a single year — and to reducing the daily delay burden caused by signaling incidents.
For operators, the benefits compound across two dimensions:
- Reduced downtime — continuous visibility lets teams anticipate breakdowns and avoid unnecessary service interruptions
- Optimized operations — the data collected goes beyond monitoring, supporting broader efficiency and energy-consumption gains
Today, the railway sector represents 30% of Alpha Innovations' turnover — a reflection of our position as a technological leader in this space, and of a broader mission: securing sectors where energy and reliability are critical, from transport to medical, telecom, and defense, through custom systems powered by our proprietary supervision and optimization software.
This commitment recently brought Infrabel and Minister for SMEs Eléonore Simonet to our production site, alongside a delegation of about thirty stakeholders including Infrabel CEO Benoît Gilson and Agoria Director Clarisse Ramackers — recognition covered by the national press.