Railway Maintenance: the New Frontier of Wireless Monitoring

Railways require constant maintenance to ensure the safety of passengers and railway staff. In addition, from an economic point of view, the disruption of the railway line causes considerable losses to the railway company, not only in the form of corrective action but also in terms of customer dissatisfaction and compensation. 

Today, monitoring rails for predictable maintenance is fairly simple: in most rail networks, special trains with wheel sensors traverse the entire rail network once in a given period of time, usually 6-12 months. 

These trains measure several key parameters throughout the rail system. In particular, it monitors changes in height and width between two lines, because if this distance changes, the risk of the train slipping can increase significantly. If you are looking for the best railway track maintenance services, you can look at this website. 

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1. Optimize maintenance cycle

The wireless monitoring system transmits real-time information to the railway operations center, meaning operators have access to a continuous flow of information about the condition of their rails, enabling them to optimize maintenance cycles. 

Unlike traditional monitoring methods such as the aforementioned “monitoring train”, which only provides outdated information every few months, real-time wireless monitoring allows operators to see the actual situation on-site at any time. 

2. Enter the estimate

Combined with machine learning tools, wireless surveillance solutions can also improve their ability to predict potential incidents over time by creating more accurate models as additional data sets are introduced. 

The collection of track condition data over a long period of time provides an opportunity for operators to create predictive models. It also gives them access to accurate long-term information about how the track is expected to behave under certain circumstances, such as extreme weather events such as heatwaves or frost.