EP3408952A1 - System and method for providing passengers with multimedia entertainment services in transportation vehicles - Google Patents

Abstract

A system and method for providing passengers with multimedia entertainment services in transportation vehicles with multiple vehicle units (VU1, VU2, VU3,..., VUN), comprising: - a single optical network (50) which comprises, for each vehicle unit (VU1, VU2, VU3,..., VUN), at least a network distribution element (DE) serving multiple seat units (SU); - one or more data centers (DC) for delivering multimedia services, connected to the optical network (50) in an end or other location of the series of vehicle units (VU1, VU2, VU3,..., VUN); - at least a seat local client screen (SLCSji) assigned to at least one passenger and connected through the optical network (50) to an associated virtual remote server (SVRSji) running in the data center (DC) and executing all the multimedia services dedicated to the passenger. Only information related to the passenger's interface and interaction with the system is exchanged between the seat local client screen (SLCSji) and the associated virtual remote server (SVRSji).

Description

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING PASSENGERS WITH MULTIMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES IN TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES

DESCRIPTION

Field of the invention

The present invention has its application within the telecommunication sector, especiallydealing with communication systems installed in passenger transport vehicles and more particularly, but not exclusively, with data communication networks installed aboard rolling stock vehicles such as high-speed trains, coaches, passenger trains, suburban trains, trams, etc.

More specifically, the present invention proposes a telecommunication system and method of multimedia data distribution for providing the passengers of these vehicles with advanced entertainment services.

Background of the invention

Historically, communication infrastructures installed aboard trains have been related to monitoring and managing the status of the vehicle systems, while passenger entertainment services were considered non-critical. Thus, little effort was put to provide them telecommunication facilities. For example, simple video/audio broadcasting is the major entertainment service for passengers that can be found in lines covering long distances.

In order to reinforce the assertion of lack of great interest regarding the deployment of entertainment systems in those vehicles, it should be noted that some efforts have been done by international bodies between the years 1999 and 2010 in the direction of defining a communication architecture and the necessary protocols for non-vital communication at vehicle level, covering rolling stock vehicles, but considering only two types of data service: 1 ) Process Variables, which reflect the state of a vehicle by variables such as speed, motor current, operator's commands, and 2) Messages carrying infrequent but possibly lengthy information (e.g., diagnosis or passenger requests). This architecture is the Train Communication Network (TCN), which has been standardized by the IEC and UIC ["IEC 61375-1 and UIC 556 - International Standards for Train Communication," Schafers et al., Proc. IEEE 51 st Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), Tokyo, May 2000] and by the IEEE [IEEE standard 1473TM-2010 (Revision of IEEE standard 1473-1999), "IEEE Standard for Communications Protocol Aboard Passenger Trains", IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, New York, March 201 1 ]. Later, this standard was adopted in 2012 in Spain and published in the Spanish Official State Gazette (BOE: Boletin Oficial del Estado), by the definition of the AENOR EN-61375 with same characteristics [AENOR standard EN 61375-2-1 , "Equipos electronicos para ferrocarriles. Red de comunicaciones del tren. Parte 2-1 : Bus de cable del tren (WTB - Wire Train Bus)", AENOR, October 2012].

The TCN architecture comprises two levels, the Wire Train Bus (WTB) connecting the vehicles, and the Multifunction Vehicle Bus (MVB) connecting the equipment aboard a vehicle or group of vehicles. Annual revisions of those standards until 2014 add parts 3 and 4 incorporating the Ethernet Consist Network (ECN), thus ensuring interoperability of individual vehicles within Open Trains in international traffic. With respect to the transmission capabilities inside the TCN, the data rate is 1.0 Mb/s for the WTB, and 1.5Mb/s for the MVB, only taking into account the optical fiber as an alternative medium to copper for wiring the MVB. Ethernet technologies up to 10/100 Mb/s full duplex are considered for the ECN deployment.

However, passengers are eager to experience advanced entertainment services with improved quality of experience, similarly to what they might have at their homes or even in their mobile phones/tablets, requiring much higher performances than those listed in the previous paragraph. These advanced entertainment services may include video on demand, audio streaming, in-vehicle gaming and Internet connectivity among others. Please note that these services are beyond simple broadcasting of content, as user interaction plays an important role. Consequently, a suitable communication infrastructure should be deployed for delivering these services and, thus, being able to support high capacity data transmission.

Nowadays, the most advanced entertainment systems are those deployed within airplanes. In fact, the so-called In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) systems offer the possibilities above mentioned. Besides their capability to cope with the required capacity, these systems are specifically tailored for airplanes in terms of network architecture, as well as form-factor and weight of the devices employed. Thus, these solutions cannot be directly exportable to series of vehicles, as the requirements and possibilities are substantially different. For example, while in an airplane everything should be contained in the same casing, in rolling stock vehicles there are several cars that can be conveniently attached/detached to the convoy. Thus, the network should be able to smoothly scale up/down when attaching/detaching cars to the convoy, while having enough flexibility to ensure the quality of experience of the users.

On the other hand, in-flight entertainment systems are based on seat screens and Seat Electronic Boxes (SEBs) connected to the IFE servers through digital switches and zone boxes. The most critical piece of equipment is the SEB installed under each passenger seat. The new generations of IFE systems are required to provide more and more services (e.g., audio, video, Internet, flight services, multimedia, games, shopping, phone, etc.) at the expenses of increasing the power dissipation. Fans are used to face up this issue, but they introduce some drawbacks such as extra cost, energy consumption when multiplied by the number of seats, reliability and maintenance concern (i.e., filters, failures, etc.), risk of blocking by passengers' belongings, and noise, coupled with unpleasant smells creating disturbance in the overall area. Additionally, the SEB also reduces the legroom.

As mentioned above, major developments towards optical networks for entertainment are those tailored for IFE services. Precisely, US8184974B2 deals with a cabling system based on tree/star architecture with fiber optic disconnects, where each disconnect can serve display units, server switches or more disconnects. US8416698B2 proposes to go further, performing a serial connection between selected display units in order to improve the network resiliency capabilities. Specifically, the fiber optic network configuration is based on a ring with tree/star architecture. In US8682161 B2 a tree configuration with several splitting stages is proposed for flight vehicles, featuring wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) for up/down signal duplexing. Details are given for head end, seat units, and optical splitters. Possible options are also envisioned including a switching hub between head end and first splitter, the use of asymmetric splitters and time division multiplexing TDM for upstream, assigning a time slot per seat.

US2009/0202241A1 describes several optical network architectures based on either point to point connection or a single fiber tree for distribution content aboard a transportation platform during travel. Thus, the cited inventions have a central unit that is attached to each seat unit by a tree/star architecture, sometimes serially interconnecting their seat/screen boxes/units in order to achieve a certain redundancy. Please note that these solutions have a very limited degree of flexibility/scalability, as they are thought to be deployed in a single casing, but not in a transportation platform consisting (which can be considered as an assembly) of several units (each serving a set of passengers / seat units). US201 1/0302616A1 discloses a visible light communication system for IFE using a satellite transponder for application in aircraft cabins. US2013/0067330A1 deals with an infotainment system delivering media content in a vehicle (preferably a train). Media content is stored in servers in communication with at least one server on board. The delivery to users is based on a wireless network. In US2005/0039208A1 a wireless communication system is proposed for a transportation vehicle such as, for example, an aircraft, bus, cruise ship, and train, including an information source data content

(for multimedia services) supporting a number of wireless interfaces with wireless access points. The wireless access point is coupled to the information source content. US2010/0049830 A1 describes a solution applicable to general vehicles but especially aimed to transport by rail where Power Line Communications technology is used. Finally, in US2007/0061056A1 describes a bypass switch for an Ethernet network deployed among the different cars of the rail vehicle. WO2012/061625 describes a vehicle communication network which comprises two sub-networks connected by a data bridge and multiple vehicle control modules based on multimedia processing modules. Finally, in the literature, entertainment service on board is explicitly mentioned in, "The Use of Ethernet for Single On-board Train Network," Aziz et al., IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control (ICNSC), pp. 1430 - 1434, 2008. The proposed network has a star topology and all the connections use optical fiber cables. The network is assumed to carry control data in addition to entertainment traffic and the use of Ethernet protocol has been proposed for providing it in railway vehicles. But this network is not robust in case of a possible fiber cut and maintenance/operation costs are high.

In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the state of the art for an improved communication infrastructure and multimedia passenger system for delivering advanced entertainment services during travel in a series of vehicles, including transportation vehicles comprising several units, each serving a set of passengers.

Summary of the invention

The present invention solves the aforementioned problems and overcomes previously explained state-of-art work limitations by providing a telecommunications system and method for virtual and remote multimedia passenger entertainment in transportation vehicle, where each entertainment service is offered per passenger in a dedicated virtual machine running on a centralized data center (DC) located in the vehicle. The network architecture of the proposed telecommunications system is based on optical fiber and is able to deliver a set of services per passenger.

Thus, the present invention combines the advantages of:

a data distribution physical architecture based on an ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency fiber optical network, and

a logical architecture for a centralization of most of the processing in dedicated virtual machines, based on client devices installed in each passenger seat connected through said optical network to at least one internal data center.

All multimedia applications of a specific passenger are executed in an onboard data center and the passenger can get access to them by simply employing a display terminal connected to the data center via a remote display protocol. The proposed system and method for multimedia passenger entertainment use a cloud computing platform and infrastructure in such a way that at least one virtual machine is allocated to each seat or passenger. The user-facing computer or terminal device, deployed on a per-seat basis, relies heavily on streaming content and sending back to the central processing servers the information based on user input. The cloud computing platform and infrastructure includes one or more deployed DCs, each comprising a set of servers and storage means. The cloud computing platform is connected to the proposed optical network and offers the main services of storage resources and virtual machines. The proposed invention can be applied in transportation vehicles comprising several seat units, each serving one or more passengers. Thus, the invention can be used in any kind of series of vehicles, including those present in high-speed lines covering distances of several hundreds of kms (travel duration of several hours). Among the rolling stock options for covering these distances, those featuring (very) high-speed constitute an interesting option as they are an alternative for business trips as well as attracting passengers of high income. This kind of passengers is an interesting market niche since they are willing to spend a little more per travel to experience a substantially comfortable trip.

The proposed invention offers e.g. high resolution gaming services with low latency in which a user-facing system alone does not suffice to provide the service, relying on additional hardware commonly deployed in centralized locations.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, a system for providing passengers with multimedia entertainment services in transportation vehicles comprising multiple vehicle units is disclosed. The system comprises a single optical network and the following components:

- A single optical network comprising at least a network distribution element (DE) serving multiple seat units of each vehicle unit.

- A DC for delivering multimedia services. There can be one or more DCs connected to the optical network in different locations, previously selected, within the series of multiple vehicle units;

- At least a seat local client screen (SLCS) assigned to at least one passenger located in a vehicle unit and an associated virtual remote server (SVRS) which runs in one the DCs and executes all the multimedia services dedicated to the passenger. The SLCS and the SVRS are connected through the optical network and exchange only information related to the passenger's interface and interaction with the system, by means of a streaming protocol through a dedicated channel of this optical network.

In a possible implementation of the single optical network, there is at least a network distribution element attached to a fiber tree, and each tree can serve multiple seat units within a vehicle unit. It is possible to use trees of single fiber and there could be multiple fibers trees. Also, within each vehicle unit there could be more than one tree. A second aspect of the present invention refers to a method for providing passengers with multimedia entertainment services in transportation vehicles, implementable in the system described before, which comprises the following steps:

- exchanging information related to a passenger's interface and interaction with multimedia entertainment services between a SLCS assigned to at least one passenger located in a vehicle unit and an associated SVRS, by means of a streaming protocol through a dedicated channel of a single optical network;

- the SVRS executing all the multimedia services dedicated to the passenger in a set of physical servers hosted on a data center connected to the optical network and configured for delivering multimedia services.

The method in accordance with the above described aspects of the invention has a number of advantages with respect to prior art, which can be summarized as follows:

• The present invention allows multimedia entertainment system provision without the need to host any processing capable device. The SEBs needed in prior art to deploy an entertainment system can be minimized, reduced or ultimately, removed in the proposed system.

• The present invention does not require any server external to the vehicle and located in a fixed position along the vehicle route. At the passenger site, a seat local client screen is connected through the optical network and all multimedia applications of a specific passenger are executed in one dedicated seat virtual remote server, without requiring a plurality of personal computing devices having sufficient memory to accommodate a desired media volume to be installed e.g. on the back of each seat.

• The present invention reduces the user-facing terminal device (SLCS) just to the basics of user-interaction and display functions. This user-facing device (SLCS) relies on low-cost, high volume display devices, while the processing of information happens in dedicated virtual machines or instances (SVRS), which are running on centralized servers. The processing capabilities of the hardware of each user or passenger facing device are limited, leveraging the benefits of a deployed optical network, while offering high-bandwidth and low latency services such as high- definition video or high-resolution gaming. The instances (SVRS) are deployed in centralized locations of the vehicle(s). Multimedia applications are executed on a per seat virtual servers; no execution of processing modules in remote machines other than the terminals is required. The communications happen between each per seat virtual server and the main servers. The message exchanging between the passenger's facing device (SLCS) and the corresponding per passenger server (SVRS) is based on one or more dedicated streaming protocols over an optical communications network.

• As the present invention is based on deploying an optical fiber based network, the weight of the cabling is considerably reduced, as well as the proposed network provides an infrastructure of high capacity and bandwidth capable to deliver a high variety of contents on demand with improved quality of experience. These advantages are attained regardless of how the network on board is communicating with the external networks.

• Regarding the aforementioned WO2012/061625, the present invention differs from the system disclosed in this prior art document in the following:

o It is based on an optical network which does not require routing/bridging of packets or frames. Instead, it is a hierarchical and scalable optical structure with several numbers of trees for streaming distribution.

o No vehicle control modules are needed because almost all the information corresponding to a particular seat is processed in a virtual and remote dedicated server that is placed in the DC, avoiding the use of the network for the transmission of signaling between the different SVRSes and the virtual multimedia servers (VMSes).

• The present invention focuses on providing media content to users/passengers leveraging networking trends such as Software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) as well as high-speed bandwidth supported by optical fiber and devices.

• Furthermore, the proposed system architecture is very simple, flexible and scalable (in terms of number of users and capacity). Fiber cabling according to the proposed network architecture is de-attached from the specific technologies employed in the equipment of the DCs, DEs and SUs. Thus, if the network grows (or needs an update), only replacing the equipment at the network ends (and eventually in the DEs) would be sufficient to cope with the new needs/specifications.

• Additionally, the present invention overcomes the handicap of prior art systems regarding reliability, since non-functioning SEBs cause significant discomfort to passengers. The present invention features data redundancy in case of a possible fiber cut, thanks to the redundancy/protection architecture proposed for the system.

• Furthermore, the proposed system architecture relies on deploying fiber and a set of passive elements, and these do not need excessive maintenance. Thus, a low maintenance/operation cost is achieved.

These and other advantages will be apparent in the light of the detailed description of the invention.

Description of the drawings

For the sake of comprehension and understanding the characteristics of the invention, according to a preferred practical embodiment thereof and to complement this description, the following figures are attached as an integral part thereof, having an illustrative and non-limiting character:

Figure 1 shows the physical architecture of a system for multimedia entertainment services in vehicles, in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention. Figure 2 shows the architecture of an active distribution element of the system for multimedia entertainment services in vehicles, in accordance with a possible embodiment of the invention.

Figure 3 shows the architecture of a passive colored distribution element of the system for multimedia entertainment services in vehicles, in accordance with another possible embodiment of the invention.

Figure 4 shows the architecture of a passive colorless distribution element of the system for multimedia entertainment services in vehicles, in accordance with a further possible embodiment of the invention.

Figure 5 shows the generic deployment architecture of the system for multimedia entertainment services in vehicles, in accordance with a possible embodiment of the invention.

Figure 6 shows the logical architecture of different physical servers within the DC of the system for multimedia entertainment services in vehicles, in accordance with a possible embodiment of the invention.

Preferred embodiment of the invention The matters defined in this detailed description are provided to assist in a comprehensive understanding of the invention. Accordingly, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that variation changes and modifications of the embodiments described herein can be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. Also, description of well-known functions and elements are omitted for clarity and conciseness.

Of course, the embodiments of the invention can be implemented in a variety of architectural platforms, operating and server systems, devices, systems, or applications. Any particular architectural layout or implementation presented herein is provided for purposes of illustration and comprehension only and is not intended to limit aspects of the invention.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a system for virtualized multimedia entertainment services in a vehicle of multiple passengers and vehicle units (e.g., a train) is proposed. Two different layers can be distinguished in the proposed system: a data/physical communication layer and a multimedia passenger entertainment layer. Each of them can have different implementations, as the ones described below, and all of them are examples of the different possibilities of the system architecture.

Figure 1 shows the data/physical communication layer of the system, which comprises a single optical network where each vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN) has one or more network distribution elements (DE) attached to fiber trees, each tree serving several seat units (SU). The series of distribution elements (DE) can be composed of passive and/or active elements to serve the fiber trees, to which the seat units (SU) are attached. A different number of trees can be attached to the same distribution element (DE), depending on the number of seat units per vehicle unit. The network distribution elements (DE), and the vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN) or cars of the vehicles, are interconnected by optical fibers in order to have certain redundancy while featuring fiber duplexing for high capacity interconnection. One ore more data centers (DC) are connected to the optical network. At least two data centers (DC) can be considered for redundancy purposes, e.g. each data center (DC) located at each of the two ends of the vehicle, i.e., at both ends of the series of vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN). Thus, a resilient mode can be activated when one or more network elements are malfunctioning, e.g. an unrecoverable fiber cut between vehicle units is detected. Each data center (DC) is tailored for remote multimedia passenger entertainment, and it is capable of delivering multimedia services, e.g., video on demand, audio streaming, in-vehicle gaming and Internet connectivity among other possible services. Virtual machines within each data center (DC) can be instantiated e.g. employing hypervisors that run directly on the physical server hardware.

Please note that this system is highly scalable, as attaching/detaching vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN) and the corresponding set of network distribution elements (DE) can be easily performed according to the variation/increase of the number (N) of vehicle units and/or seat units (SU).

Figure 1 illustrates a particular example of the proposed network architecture when employing a single distribution element (DE) per vehicle unit.

In the following, some examples of the network distribution elements (DE) are provided, shown in Figures 2-4. However, the invention is not limited to these cases.

Figure 2 shows a first implementation example of the data communication plane comprising active distribution elements (DE) for serving the different vehicle units

(VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN). These active distribution elements (DE) can be implemented with alternative schemes, e.g. as optical line terminals (OLT) compliant with GPON or XG-PON networks: Gigabit- or (Ten-Gigabit)- capable Passive Optical Networks. Of course other standards are not precluded and, as standards evolve, newer versions can be supported by the described network. Several distribution active equipment, or optical line terminals (OLT), can be included in the distribution elements (DE) of the different passenger vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN), each serving different seat units (SU). Each seat unit (SU) includes an optical network unit (ONU) in order to effectively communicate with the corresponding optical line terminals (OLT). In order to communicate the optical line terminals (OLT) of the active distribution elements (DE) with the data centers (DC) located at different vehicle sites, a WDM communication can be established with a preassigned wavelength per OLT. So, one or more optical add/drop (de-)multiplexers (OADM) are placed within each distribution elements (DE) in order to route the signals to/from the preassigned optical line terminals (OLT).

Figure 3 shows another implementation example of the data communication plane which uses passive colored distribution elements (DE), instead of active ones as depicted in Figure 2. In the context of the invention, the concept of color refers to the color of the wavelength.. In this case, the data centers (DC) located at both ends of the series of vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN) host a pool of optical line terminals (OLT), each transmitting a different wavelength. Advantageously, the colored distribution elements (DE) combine a set of optical add/drop (de-)multiplexers

(OADM), passive splitters/couplers (30) and a circulator (31 ) in order to route each wavelength to/from a different tree. Thus, a hybrid Wavelength/Time Division Multiplexing, WDM/TDM, access to the different seat units (SU) is envisioned. In this sense, the same wavelength is used for up/downstream, while the different seat units (SU) are multiplexed in time. This approach requires a suitable OLT/ONU architecture with high robustness against Rayleigh backscattering.

Figure 4 shows another implementation example of the data plane consisting on passive colorless distribution elements (DE), instead of the colored ones shown in Figure 3. The wavelength of a colorless distribution element (DE) is nonspecific, as the properties of the distribution element (DE) are agnostic to any wavelength available in the network. This condition can be an advantage for deploying a pure WDM-PON where every ONU is assigned to a different wavelength. In this case, the data centers (DC) also host a pool of optical line terminals (OLT), where the access to the corresponding end seat unit (SU) is achieved by ultra-dense WDM: Wavelength

Division Multiplexing. So, the architecture of the colorless distribution element (DE) is based on only simple power splitters/combiners (40, 40', 40") with no optical filtering capabilities: For example, optical splitters with the 90:10 (40), 10:90 (40') and 50:50 (40") split ratios are used. These power splitting ratios depicted in Figure 4 are just for exemplifying purposes. Thus, in order to achieve the desired WDM, the equipment located at the OLT/SU side is capable of filtering the desired signal at the assigned wavelength.

The second layer of the system is the multimedia passenger entertainment layer which relies on the ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency communication provided by the optical network architecture shown in Figure 1. A main goal of the system is to remove the SEB to overcome all the limitations described in the prior art, by centralizing most of the processing associated to each passenger interaction within the entertainment layer in dedicated virtual machines. This approach significantly simplifies the current solutions that are deployed. The end facing the passengers, mainly covers human interface aspects and acts as remote interactive display. Note that the perceived user experience does not correspond to the computing and graphical abilities of the hardware of each per-seat device, requiring extra processing in a centralized location. The proposed generic architecture for the deployment of the virtual and remote multimedia passenger entertainment system, is based on a plurality of seat local client screens (SLCSjn), shown in Figure 5, and a plurality of seat virtual remote server (SVRS) and virtual multimedia servers (VMS1 , , VMSp) such as video server, game server, music server, etc., whose sample logical architecture is shown in Figure 6. Both the virtual remote servers (SVRSji) and virtual multimedia servers (VMS1 , VMSp) run in each physical server (PS1 , PS2, ...,PSk) of the data center (DC) and on top of virtual machines (VM1 , VM2, VMm), e.g., commonly one dedicated virtual machine per server without excluding other deployment modes, hosted on the on-board data center (DC). Each seat local client screen (SLCSji), j = 1 , 2,..., N, i = 1 , 2,..., n, assigned to at least one passenger, acts as a thin client device installed in each passenger seat, having passenger seats numbered by ji, j being the number N of vehicle units (VU) and i de the number n of seat units (SU) in vehicle units (VU). Each seat local client screen (SLCSji) is connected through the optical network (50) to an associated virtual remote server (SVRSji) operating as a client/server computing environment. All multimedia applications of a specific passenger are executed in one dedicated virtual remote server (SVRSji), and employing a remote display protocol between the passenger seat local client screen (SLCSji) and the associated virtual remote server (SVRSji), a passenger can access to all the multimedia applications that are being executed in the remote associated virtual remote server (SVRSji). Thus, only information related to the human/passenger interface and interaction the system, e.g. tactile screens, is communicated between the seat local client screen (SLCSji) and its associated virtual remote server (SVRSji). The (SVRSji) communicates with the different virtual multimedia servers (VMS1 , VMSp) hosted in virtual machines (VM1 , VM2, VMm), located in the same or different physical servers (PS1 , PS2, PSk) connected through the data center (DC) network arquitecture by a server switch (51 ). The data center (DC) provides the storage resources and virtual machines (VM1 , VM2, VMm) employing hypervisors (H1 , Hk) that run directly on the hardware (HW1 , HWk) of the physical server (PS1 , PS2, ...,PSk).

The proposed embodiments can be implemented as a collection of software elements, hardware elements, firmware elements, or any suitable combination of them.

Note that in this text, the term "comprises" and its derivations (such as "comprising", etc.) should not be understood in an excluding sense, that is, these terms should not be interpreted as excluding the possibility that what is described and defined may include further elements, steps, etc.

Claims

1 . A system for providing passengers with multimedia entertainment services in transportation vehicles comprising a series of multiple vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN), the system characterized by comprising:

- a single optical network (50) which comprises, for each vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN), at least a network distribution element (DE) serving multiple seat units (SU) of the vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN);

- a data center (DC) for delivering multimedia services, connected to the optical network (50) in a location within the series of multiple vehicle units (VU1 . VU2. VU3,..., VUN);

- at least a seat local client screen (SLCSji) assigned to at least one passenger located in the vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN) connected through the optical network (50) to an associated seat virtual remote server (SVRSji) running in the data center (DC),

the seat local client screen (SLCSji) and the associated virtual remote server (SVRSji) exchanging only information related to the passenger's interface and interaction with the system by means of a streaming protocol through a dedicated channel of the optical network (50),

and the virtual remote server (SVRSji) executing all the multimedia services dedicated to the passenger.

2. The system according to claim 1 , wherein the network distribution elements (DE) are attached to fiber trees, each tree serving multiple seat units (SU) of the vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN).

3. The system according to any of the previous claims, wherein the data center (DC) comprises a set of physical servers (PS1 , PS2, PSk) and storage means connected by at least a server switch (51 ) following a data center (DC) network topology connected to the optical network (50).

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the virtual remote server (SVRSji) communicates with multiple virtual multimedia servers (VMS1 , VMSp) hosted in virtual machines (VM1 , VM2, VMm) located in at least one of the physical servers (PS1 , PS2, PSk) connected through the data center (DC) network topology.

5. The system according to claim 4, wherein the virtual remote server (SVRSji) and the virtual multimedia servers (VMS1 , VMSp) run on top of the virtual machines (VM1 , VM2, VMm) using a hypervisor (H 1 , Hk).

6. The system according to any of claims 4-5, wherein the virtual multimedia servers (VMS1 , VMSp) are selected from internet servers, video servers, game servers and music servers.

7. The system according to any of previous claims, wherein the seat local client screen (SLCSji) runs in a display terminal.

8. The system according to any of previous claims, wherein a certain number of fiber trees is attached to a same distribution element (DE), the number of fiber trees depending on the number of seat units (SU) per vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN).

9. The system according to any of previous claims, wherein the, at least one, distribution element (DE) is active.

10. The system according to any of previous claims, wherein the, at least one, distribution element (DE) is passive colored or passive colorless.

1 1 . The system according to any of previous claims, further comprising more than one data center (DC) connected to the optical network (50) in different locations within the series of multiple vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3, VUN).

12. The system according to claim 1 1 , wherein at least one data center (DC) is configured to operate in a resilient mode, which is activated when at least one network element of the optical network (50) is malfunctioning.

13. A method for providing passengers with multimedia entertainment services in transportation vehicles comprising a series of multiple vehicle units (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN), the method characterized by comprising:

- exchanging information related to a passenger's interface and interaction with multimedia entertainment services between a seat local client screen (SLCSji) assigned to at least one passenger located in the vehicle unit (VU1 , VU2, VU3,..., VUN) and an associated virtual remote server (SVRSji), by means of a streaming protocol through a dedicated channel of a single optical network (50);

- the virtual remote server (SVRSji) executing all the multimedia services dedicated to the passenger in a set of physical servers (PS1 , PS2, ...,PSk) hosted on a data center (DC), which is connected to the optical network (50) and configured for delivering multimedia services.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the data center (DC) is configured for delivering multimedia services selected from Internet connectivity, video on demand, in-vehicle gaming and audio streaming.