Southern area is leading a trial of One Big Circle’s video and AI technologies to find outdated railway equipment that may be reused or repurposed, prevent slips, trips, and falls, and clean up the railway.
The cloud stores high-definition Automated Intelligent Video Review (AIVR) footage from across the rail network.
AI finds scrap rail, sleepers, and ballast and maps their GPS positions, allowing maintenance personnel to safely remove them.
Network Rail Senior Innovations Engineer Wayne Cherry said AIVR offers a great chance to increase company efficiency.
This will be the first time AIVR has been combined with AI, which might transform the game.
Scrap on the side of the railway is ugly and can impede planned engineering work, restrict safe pathways, or delay their crews reaching section of the railway infrastructure to conduct repairs during interruption.
If they can become safer and more efficient in identifying and removing junk material, it would benefit their colleagues, the rail industry, passengers, and taxpayers.
The initiative is being tested on the Wessex line, one of the busiest on the train network, across Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, and Wiltshire before being expanded.
New technology improves productivity, safety, and finances.
Slips, trips, and falls are the most common injuries on Network Rail’s Wessex line, and debris on the rail is a major concern as most maintenance is done at night.
The railway has become a dumping site for old railway sleepers, scrap rail, ballast bags, and other assets.
Using high-definition video and AI to precisely locate trash material without employees walking along the train is a tremendous safety improvement potential.
other scrap material can be recycled and utilized to fund railway operations, while other surplus materials can be reused.
Bomac concrete sleepers are no longer made, although sidings and certain tracks still need them.
This technology has found 40 of these sleepers on a location between Yeovil and Weymouth, allowing the firm to reuse them instead of buying new ones.