Each station continuously submits a time for the TTRT in claim frames. Each station compares the TTRT bids from other stations with its own. If the other stations TTRT is longer then it continues to send its own. If the other stations TTRT is shorter then it retransmits it and stops sending its own. If the TTRTs are the same then the station with the highest address wins.
All stations monitor the ring.
If the ring is inactive for too long, or a break exists or there are incorrect frames on the ring then the ring is initialised. If a port breaks then a QLS is detected by the PHY and the port is wrapped without the other stations having to know about it. If the TVX expires then the claim process starts and if that fails then the beacon process starts. The beacon process is used to detect where the logical fault is on the ring, i.e. a station is connected but not operating correctly. If a station does not receive tokens or data from its upstream neighbour then it sends a broadcast beacon frame which each station in the ring repeats.