Portugal’s national rail network is adopting Blackberry’s QNX OS as a basis for a future railway protection system. The selection has been made by Critical Software, who are responsible for development of the new railway protection system.

Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP), the Portuguese railway infrastructure manager, had been looking for a solution that performed movement authority and speed supervision functionalities. IP awarded Critical Software with a contract to design, supply and supervise the installation of a complementary safety system to be deployed for its fleet of maintenance vehicles that inspect tracks, bridges and overhead lines.

The QNX-powered system from Critical Software will perform active supervision of vehicle operations, avoid Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD) scenarios and ensure applicable speed restrictions are met on Portugal’s 2,786 km (1,731 mi) of track.

“Increasing rail safety and separating maintenance workers from train traffic is critical to saving lives. BlackBerry QNX is trusted by rail partners around the globe to help them develop safe, secure mission-critical systems that they can count on and it’s a real pleasure to share both our expertise and proven technology to support the comprehensive safety solution that Critical Software will be rolling out across the Portuguese rail network,” said Joerg Zimmer VP, BlackBerry Technology Solutions.

“Overseeing the safety of the legions of maintenance vehicles that work across a rail network as vast as Portugal’s is no small task and something that requires having a high level of trust and reliability in one’s suppliers,” said Luís Gargaté, Business Development Director at Critical Software. “Beyond just a supplier, we see BlackBerry QNX as a true partner. Besides supplying the operating system, their support to help us certify the overall solution will be crucial to deploy it faster.”