Moving towards an 'intelligent railway'

The drive for an 'intelligent railway' requires access to expert resources - in sensors, communications, analysis and action planning. Lloyd's Register Rail has a depth of knowledge in the field and can provide objective advice and solutions.

How we can help

The intelligent railway sets out to have a continuous view of the status of the fixed and rolling systems and their most critical components. Knowledge of individual performance, age, health, degradation profile, failure mode, failure behaviour and the potential impact of such failures is critical to effective asset management decision making. It is important to know about the utilization of assets over time and also the way they have been used. We have a range of monitoring solutions to assist you in this process, such as the Gotcha wheel impact monitoring system. The Gotcha system was developed by Lloyd's Register Rail and the Dutch engineering company Baas R&D in a close working relationship with the Dutch infrastructure provide ProRail and rolling stock maintenance company NedTrain.

Lloyd's Register Rail has the experience, the skills and the contacts to help any rail industry business to create and manage these tools, using a tried and tested step-by-step approach:

• Identify what is needed to be known: the "what question"
• Identify the possible ways to acquire the information needed: the "how question"
• Create the supporting intelligent architecture
• Develop, implement and manage the required set of tools and solutions together with capable partners.

What are the benefits?

• A continuous view of your fixed and rolling systems including their most critical components
• Knowledge of asset health and performance, allowing informed decisions on maintenance and other asset management activities - leading to real performance improvements and cost optimisation
• Valuable information about the train, through the Gotcha system: the measured data, derived from the track mounted sensors coupled to an advanced calculation program, provides current accurate information to operators and infrastructure managers.

Recent projects

• In a trial for rolling stock monitoring for a large rolling stock maintenance company, five trains were equipped with an on-board to base communication system for the distribution of diagnostic information. Requirements included project management, requirements specification, design and testing.
• The Gotcha system is widely implemented in the Netherlands with pilot projects in a number of other countries including the UK, Poland and Sweden. Data derived from 17 of the 42 Gotcha stations installed in the Netherlands is used by a large rolling stock maintenance company for the maintenance of both conventional and high-speed trains. As a result of the new approach, substantial savings have been achieved due to overall better wheel condition.

What next?

If you would like to progress your enquiry further please choose one of the following: