Case Study: SEPTA achieves federal PTC compliance and 99%+ uptime with Digi International's TransPort WR44

Digi Helps SEPTA Meet Federal PTC Requirements

SEPTA, the nation’s sixth-largest transit system serving over half a million riders daily across 2,200+ square miles, needed a reliable on-board communications solution to meet federal Positive Train Control (PTC) requirements under the Rail Safety Improvement Act. The challenge was to deliver consistent, secure messaging between locomotives, waysides and central systems across diverse rail vehicles and metropolitan cellular environments.

SEPTA deployed a Mobile Communications Package built around the Digi TransPort WR44 RR router and 220 MHz TDMA radio, providing cellular backhaul, GPS, integrated Ethernet/Wi‑Fi, hardened connectors and enterprise routing/security (BGP, OSPF, VRRP+, VPN) with centralized management via Digi Remote Manager. The system achieved more than 99% uptime, enabled PTC and paved the way toward Communications‑Based Train Control (CBTC), improving scheduling, capacity and fuel efficiency while ensuring regulatory compliance and enhanced operational visibility.

SEPTA