As the process of digitalization in North American rail freight gathers pace, we discover how connecting freight railcar air brake data to cloud analytics can change the industry. Here’s an example of how it will drive efficiency and deliver rail and cargo applications that industry participants need.
Transport providers and supply chain stakeholders require visibility and accountability. Cargo owners and shippers want guaranteed delivery of their goods “on-time and in-full.” Rail fleet operators, repair workshops and transport hubs need accurate data to manage operations, optimize maintenance, service availability and product lifecycles. All this requires better data.
RailPulse is a coalition of forward-thinking railcar owners who have joined together to facilitate the adoption of GPS and other telematics technology across the North American railcar network to increase visibility, efficiency and safety. Nexxiot is an established IoT and analytics provider that’s working with North American rail operators and RailPulse to digitalize transport assets.
A typical U.S. railcar has a GRL (gross rail load) of 286,000 pounds (fully loaded) and weighs around 40,000 pounds pounds when empty. A unit train can consist of more than 100 railcars. With each loaded car weighing up to 143 tons, the entire train can weigh more than 14,000 tons and yet travels at speeds up to 50 mph. This needs some serious stopping power. The low rolling resistance of rail wheels, the weight of the rolling assets, plus the need to safeguard the public and civil infrastructure, means this is a topic of vital importance.
New York Air Brake (NYAB) is a world leading manufacturer of rail freight braking systems. As part of the Knorr-Bremse group, NYAB ranks among the global forces that are driving the shift to sustainable transportation and next-generation mobility. Megacities are expanding and efficient freight transport is desperately needed.
Properly functioning air brakes are essential to safe railroad operations and need proper maintenance to ensure a successful mission every time a train departs for a destination. Currently, aside from analog pressure gauges in the locomotive cab, brake systems on freight cars don’t provide much data to support critical decision making to optimize their lifecycle. But with connected brakes that send data for processing in the cloud, all kinds of improvements are possible. The new cooperative agreement between global transportation digitalization company Nexxiot and NYAB is now making this happen.
The deployment of IoT sensors, data connectivity and Big Data analytics creates opportunities to transform working practices, redefine business models and automate essential processes. By connecting NYAB’s air brakes with Nexxiot’s digital ecosystem, NYAB’s customers will benefit from increased vehicle reliability, higher availability, optimized lifecycle costs and greater operational efficiency.
Most freight railcars have no native power source, but all have a pneumatic braking system. The digitalization of brakes is essential for automated brake tests and predictive maintenance. If a railcar air brake system fails in the field, it is very expensive to recover the asset and repair it. In the case that it needs to be repaired by a third-party shop, the costs can be prohibitively expensive. If a brakefails to release and the train departs, related equipment can be damaged, which means costly bills for repairs of wheels, bearings, couplers and other components, and rail infrastructure.
“Digitalization of freight trains is critical for the North American railroad industry’s competitiveness and delivering exceptional customer service over the longer term. NYAB and Nexxiot, through their advanced technology and integrated system solutions, are perfectly poised to support this vision” says Ulisses Camillo, President and CEO of NYAB.
By connecting air brakes with data, a unique live view of the real situation in the field is extracted from the information. Experienced partners like RailPulse, NYAB and Nexxiot can make sense of this data and use it to improve customer service. Experienced railroaders are especially important in this process. They get better tools, which make their lives easier and more productive. Railroaders bring their experience of the physical world to the technology, to identify new use cases and drive process improvement. This is essential to create wealth in the economy as it drives efficiency that benefits all stakeholders.
Daniel MacGregor is Co-founder of Nexxiot AG. He created and built this multi-million-dollar, digital supply-chain technology company from scratch. The company, he says “has a clear focus on digitizing mobile assets like rail freight and containers to create services for smoother operations in an integrated solution.” Daniel is a leading voice in the drive for sustainability and supports the creation of standards and applications. From hardware to information distribution and business-process innovation, Nexxiot’s clients deploy these solutions to differentiate their services and monetize digital insights. The company recently established a U.S. presence.
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