alt Hacker NewsYeah and that's fucking ridiculous and a damning indictment of the glaring incompetence of train companies.
If I can have reasonably accurate gps readings of my phone while I'm on the train, there is zero reason for train companies to not have systems that are at least as accurate.
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Part of the problem is multiple tracks. Those tracks may be only 10 feet (3 m) apart. (I don't know if high-speed rail lines in Spain are that close, and I don't know if the line where the accident occurred was double track.)
"Reasonably accurate GPS" trying to determine which track you're on at 150 mph is not as simple as you make it sound. Yeah, it can determine how far along the track you are. But when you get two trains moving toward each other, each at 150 MPH, do you really trust that GPS to tell you that they're on different tracks?
> a damning indictment of the glaring incompetence of train companies.
No, what I describe has nothing to do with the companies, that's the research state. It's just an indictment of you making bold statement about a subject, you don't now enough about.
> I can have reasonably accurate gps readings of my phone
Would you dare to cross on a rope over a deep valley, blind using only GPS readings of your phone? Because that's kind what you are suggesting, expect you also move a few hundred other people.
Does your phone's GPS work in a tunnel? What happens if GPS ever gets jammed (or worse, spoofed)?
Aviation also doesn't exclusively rely on GNSS positioning, so why should train protection, given that it's also extremely safety critical?