What is the CTC, the Adif control center that has failed and caused train traffic to be suspended again?

BarcelonaCercanías lives an unprecedented chaos. Service was scheduled to resume this Monday after 48 hours without trains and a chaotic week following the derailment in Gelida which cost the life of a young train driver. Early this morning, Cercanías (the commuter rail service) was "progressively" restarting service, but two incidents at Adif's control center, the CTC, located at Barcelona's França Station, prevented a return to normal and train service was halted again.

After an initial incident at 7 a.m. (during rush hour) that appeared to be resolved, the CTC suffered another failure half an hour later. This created bewilderment and confusion, especially for passengers at the stations who didn't know where to go, as there was little information available at Renfe ticket offices. But what exactly is this control center, how does it work, and why is it crucial for Cercanías?

What is the CTC?

We're talking about the Centralized Traffic Center at França Station: it's the core technological and IT system that serves as the nerve center for operations and runs the entire commuter rail service. It displays track conditions and train status, establishes routes, and manages traffic. Today, it suffered two consecutive failures: these are infrequent "computer crashes" that shut down the entire network.

The truth is, this isn't the first time the CTC has gone down during service. In September 2022, four years ago, the system suffered another outage that affected all commuter trains and left thousands of passengers stranded. In that case, it mainly affected radio communications with the trains, and it was concluded that the error occurred during a system update. In 2015, another failure caused similar effects. In both cases, the Catalan government requested "guarantees" that the problems "would not happen again." Adif is investigating what may have caused the two failures this morning. For the moment, they have stated that no hypothesis is being ruled out, including the possibility of a cyberattack. Currently, and with the issue seemingly resolved, service is being gradually restored.