PRESIDENT Joko Widodo of Indonesia inaugurated the country’s first high-speed line on October 2 linking Jakarta with Bandung.

The 142.3km new line, which has a maximum speed of 350km/h, has been branded Whoosh, which according to the president stands for saving time, optimal operation, and great system.

“Experience is expensive, but very valuable and we don't need to be afraid because if we are consistent, there will be fewer mistakes,” Widodo said in his inaugural speech. "The costs of errors will also decrease and in the end, production costs and project costs will also become lower over time.

“Our courage to try new things gives us confidence, gives us the opportunity to learn from the nation's children, and will be very useful for the future, making our human resources more advanced and our nation more independent.”

The line will be operated with 12 eight-car CR400AF Yawan high-speed trains supplied by CRRC. Each train has capacity for 600 passengers and offers a 3+2 seating arrangement in economy class. Up to 68 trains are expected to operate on the line every day, serving four stations.

Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, Mr Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, confirmed that passengers can travel on Whoosh free-of-charge until mid-October. During the trial service, trains are operating between Jakarta Halim, Padalarang (which connects with conventional trains to central Bandung), and Tegalluar southeast of Bandung with a shuttle connection to Bandung. Four round trips per day are running during the trial service with a journey time of 46 minutes. The other intermediate station at Karawang has not been completed yet.

The line was constructed by PT Kereta Cepat Indonesia-China (KCIC), a 60:40 Indonesian-Chinese consortium of state-owned Indonesian companies and China Railway Engineering and other Chinese companies. The line has entirely adopted Chinese railway equipment, the first time China has exported all the technology for an international high-speed project.

The project has cost nearly $US 2bn more than the initial $US 6.07bn budget due to technical issues and the unstable nature of civil works, land acquisition difficulties and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Huawei partnered with China Railway Signal and Communication (CRSC) and China Telecom to build a dedicated network for the Whoosh, which facilitates real-time communications, control, and dispatching of the trains.

The railway is equipped with the Chinese Train Control System Level 3 (CTCS-3), which was independently developed in China. Mr Lai Chaosen, vice president of Huawei Indonesia, says the train-to-ground wireless network employs interleaving in networking for seamless coverage. By achieving up to 99.99% availability, the network ensures the stable transmission of train control signals and the intelligent orchestration and scheduling of train numbers and function numbers.

The data network uses Huawei's next-generation data communications equipment, which guarantees 100% secure networks through native hard pipes. Every link is protected by redundancy, and redundancy switchover can be completed within 35ms.

The transmission network uses Huawei's Hybrid MSTP equipment, which provides the large bandwidth and high stability required by more than 20 high-speed train systems, such as scheduling and command, disaster prevention, video surveillance, passenger ticketing, and power telecontrol systems. The network is also capable of addressing the growth and evolution requirements of future railway services.

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