Communications: The heart of an Operations Control Center

Enrique Bolivar

February 03, 2025

Mission-critical communications enable next-generation OCC to improve the efficiency and safety of transport operations.

The Operations Control Center (OCC) is the brain that manages the day-to-day activities of transport operators. It’s here that the magic happens to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

The main tasks of the OCC include:

• Monitoring operations
• Anticipating problems
• Managing the daily schedule
• Minimizing service disruptions

On trains, planes, and other mass transit systems, service can be disrupted by issues like technical failures, weather, accidents, traffic and labor strikes. These disruptions can cause unacceptable delays and resource shortages. The OCC must act quickly to reduce these impacts and restore service.

The OCC must also keep performance high, maintain service quality, and manage costs. It is responsible for sticking to the schedule and budget. A well-run OCC needs the right solution and collaboration between different stakeholders. Many systems work together in the OCC, often facing challenges when new services require applications. Integration of these systems is key to controlling operations effectively.

The solution modules used in the OCC must be open and able to connect with others. Application programming interfaces (APIs) are crucial for linking different systems. APIs allow operators to create new services and improve the way different applications work together. They also provide opportunities for innovation.

In the railway sector, a disruption during rush hour can cause major problems. To respond effectively, the OCC needs to clearly understand the situation, collaborate quickly, and take the right actions, such as rescheduling trains and making recovery plans.

Multimedia communications services are vital for an efficient OCC. They help everyone stay informed and work together to handle issues. Communication services also reduce recovery time and improve the flow of information.

A strong communication system supports tasks like:

• Taking calls and dispatching services
• Coordination between stakeholders
• Keeping everyone informed
• Easy integration with other parts of the OCC

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise offers a wide range of communication solutions that cover telephony services based on the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX® Enterprise. The portfolio includes:

• Visual Notification Assistant (VNA) for managing incidents
• Voice recording for monitoring OCC interactions
• Dispatch Console for handling high call volumes
• Remote Visual Assistance (RVA) to assist field workers

These services work together with other OCC functional blocks (such as radio and video surveillance systems) using standard protocols and APIs. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Open Gateway helps connect these systems.

The Rainbow™ by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise CPaaS solution helps integrate communication services, including chat, file sharing, and voice/video calls, over any device. It also uses AI, chatbots, system databases and analytics to automate processes and create new services. Moving to a more collaborative environment is the next step for many OCCs. Integrating different functional blocks leads to better communication, faster decision-making, and improved situational awareness.

In the future, OCCs will need resilience, safety, connectivity, collaboration, data analytics and adaptability to speed up decision-making and minimize operational risk as well as the time to return to service.

Next-Generation OCC

Today’s OCC must support automation and innovation. Digital transformation is at the heart of this evolution, adding new components provide predictive capabilities, process automation and seamless collaboration.

The next-generation OCC is built on three main pillars:

1. SIP technology for advanced telephony and smooth migration to new systems
2. Cloud platforms for connecting OCCs, such as WebRTC services, which offer borderless communication and collaboration between customers and employees through integration with mobile apps and multimedia self-services interfaces, and commercial apps using the Rainbow connector
3. Hybrid private/public cloud solutions to improve reliability and introduce new services

This evolution offers transportation companies many benefits, such as:

• Fast recovery with high-resilience infrastructure
• Better OCC interaction by connecting IoT and AI solutions to automate processes and enable predictive capabilities to reduce threats and improve recovery time
• Enhanced contextual information that qualifies incidents, improves efficiency and empowers staff to collaborate and make decisions

A Smarter OCC

Effective OCCs rely on communication services to help teams collaborate and respond quickly to disruptions. These systems help keep passengers safe, minimize delays, and ensure smooth operations.