The agreements will see Bi-Standard cab signaling installed to upgrade eight trains operated by Eurostar and the development of a new version of the Bi-Standard on board high-speed trains operated by SNCF in Italy and Switzerland.
The Bi-Standard combines TVM (Transmission Voice-Machine) and ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) technologies to enable the Eurostar E300 and SNCF high-speed trains to operate safely on both the French and cross-border high-speed networks.
Hitachi Rail's Bi-Standard product line was first introduced into revenue service in France in 2007 for SNCF on the Paris-Strasbourg line. In 2009, Thalys trains were equipped to run in ERTMS mode on the Dutch and Belgian networks.