Low-Power Wide-Area Networks in Intelligent Transportation: Review and Opportunities for Smart-Railways

Technology development in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) and more specifically in Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LPWANs) has enabled a whole set of new applications in several fields of Intelligent Transportation Systems. Among all, smart-railways represents one of the most challenging scenarios, due to its wide geographical distribution and strict energy-awareness. This paper aims to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in LPWAN, with a focus on intelligent transportation. This study is part of the RAILS (Road maps for Artificial Intelligence integration in the raiL Sector) research project, funded by the European Union under the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking. As a first step to meet its objectives, RAILS surveys the current state of development of technology enablers for smart-railways considering possible technology transfer from other sectors. To that aim, IoT and LPWAN technologies appear as very promising for cost-effective remote surveillance, monitoring and control over large geographical areas, by collecting data for several sensing applications (e.g., predictive condition-based maintenance, security early warning and situation awareness, etc.) even in situations where power supply is limited (e.g., where solar panels are employed) or absent (e.g., installation on-board freight cars).