Rail Vision is an innovation driven company. From its early days, the company has grown to become a leader in the area of automated visual track inspection systems using camera and laser technologies to recognise track defects and make highly accurate measurements. Its systems have been used in the field for analysing thousands of miles of track per year on a variety of platforms operating up to full line speeds. Rail Vision provides end to end solutions for its systems including quality control for all data analysis to provide its customers with the data that can be used directly for maintenance planning. Its efforts are focussed on delivering reliable, robust and provide cost-effective information which is not possible through other modes of inspection and is too expensive or impossible to get with manual track walking. The systems offered by Rail Vision reduce operator costs by performing inspection at line speeds requiring less possession time to make measurements and detect track faults. The output is objective and easy to audit over time. Rail Vision has worked closely with leading international rail companies on providing seamless end-to-end systems. It has developed systems for mainline railways, underground and tramways demonstrating the breadth of technology application across continents including Americas, Europe and Asia.
Rail Vision specialises in developing advanced image analysis and information management solutions for the rail industry. We deploy hardware and software systems for rail infrastructure monitoring. Rail Vision expertise includes 2D optical, infra-red, and electro-magnetic image analysis, 3D image analysis with stereo, structured light and laser, laser imaging and measurements, sensor integration, Imaging hardware design, and installation, image storage and data management, image and video abstraction, annotation and retrieval, audio and other sensor data processing, information fusion, e.g. vision with ultrasound, forecasting and data mining tools for predictive maintenance, Software systems for analysing track measurements, large volume image data processing and management.
Some of our current and past customers
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring and sleeper grading |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring and sleeper grading |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring and sleeper grading |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on an integrated system of t Track Geometry, Rail Wear Profiling, Acceleration Measurements and LineScan image analytics |
 | TrackVue S series for signal and level crossing sighting measurements using forward facing camera systems that mimic drivers view |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring and sleeper grading |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on an integrated system of t Track Geometry, Rail Wear Profiling, Acceleration Measurements and LineScan image analytics coupled with Rail Wheel Interface measurements |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on an integrated system of t Track Geometry, Rail Wear Profiling, Acceleration Measurements and LineScan image analytics coupled with Rail Wheel Interface measurements |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring TrackVue S series for signal and level crossing sighting measurements using forward facing camera systems that mimic drivers view TrackVue V series for catenary and pantograph measurements |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring and sleeper grading recognising more than 20 rail and track defects and mapping sleeper and fastener types along the network |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on track condition monitoring |
 | TrackVue Z series for track inspection focussed on 3rd rail monitoring recognising vertical and horizontal displacements at joints and the position of third rail with respect to the running rail in three dimensions. |
 | TrackVue Z series for rail track inspection, rail wear measurement, rail wheel interface measurement and geometry parameter measurement |
Benefits of RV Products
1. Improving safety of passengers and trains
Series Z equipment detects broken rail, weld fractures and missing components that may cause accidents
Series Z equipment detects wide gauge issues associated with derailments
Series S equipment detects signals where sighting is an issue and braking in good time may not be possible.
Series S equipment detects clearance issues for rolling stock against all track assets (e.g. bridges, tunnels etc.)
Series R equipment detects bearing failures that can cause derailments
2. Increasing track capacity
All products determine track condition which allows train operators to judge if speed restrictions can be removed and trains run at higher speeds, or run with more freight tonnage
3. Reducing carbon footprint
Our products improve maintenance practices and track condition over time to reduce carbon footprint at every stage. TrackVue Z,S,V series products can be mounted on passenger trains, removing the need to use additional inspection vehicles.
4. Increasing life of rails
Series Z equipment provide data for identifying areas with high levels of load and stress on rails, and offer insight into reasons for these problems, e.g. excessive grinding, poor track geometry, etc. A predictive maintenance approach is used with these tools to increase rail life.
5. Increasing life of wheels
Rail wheel interface measurement tools working together with rail and wheel profiling provide a unique insight into track sections with maximum potential for wheel damage, and use wheel reprofiling and life cycle data to offer a strategy that increases their reprofiling interval and overall life. Wheel monitoring is used to check that wheels are within specified tolerances and guides on when reprofiling is necessary.
6. Optimising track maintenance processes such as rail grinding
Series R equipment calculates rail wear over time and its application before and after grinding validates the quality of rail grinding. Series Z equipment also identifies the need for rail grinding, and it can be used to verify the effect of rail grinding on improving rail wheel interface.
7. Effective asset management
The knowledge of assets, their recent most condition and precise location is key for effective asset management. Series Z equipment provides these details for track and Series R equipment for trains.
8. Predictive maintenance
All inspection systems are tailored for providing regular data that can be used for predictive maintenance. Predicting the time to failure and delaying it for components is of immense financial value to railways.
9. Reducing noise and vibration
Series Z equipment is used for understanding rail roughness that can increase noise by 20dB. Inertial, vibration and noise sensors are used with our product range at bogie level to measure track sections with excessive noise and vibration.
10. Improving passenger comfort
All products enhance track and rolling stock quality improving overall passenger comfort.
11. Reducing delays
All products identify areas of reactive maintenance and identify potential future points of failure. Improvements in track and rolling stock condition from predictive maintenance reduce overall passenger or freight delays.
12. Guided maintenance and reduction in human labour
Series Z and S equipment removes the need for human track walking, Series R equipment removes the need for manual underframe inspections, and both reduce the need to use hand-held tools for making measurements.
13. Reducing breakdowns
Series V equipment directly reduce the possibility of trains stopping because of electrical input failures.
14. Change detection and management
All tools generate detailed data that can be compared over time to find unacceptable changes that guide intervention.
15. Ensuring rolling stock clearances
Series S equipment generates information on rolling stock clearances with vegetation infringements, and tunnel/bridge walls. It uses data from Series Z equipment to calibrate all measurements and compares rolling stock kinetic envelopes against available clearances. Deficient clearances may require civil works before prescribed clearances are available.
16. Auditing maintenance processes
All tools provide objective data to audit the quality of previous maintenance.
Rail Vision Advantage
One common oversight in procurement of sensor diagnostic systems may be caused by limited understanding of sensor data volume and complexity. It is easy to fail to account for the complete life cycle cost of these systems and become too focussed on the cheapest initial offering. In order to fully reap the benefits from these inspection systems, the superiority of diagnostic solution, a well integrated digital data pipeline and long-term customer-supplier relationship is very important. The main focus of procurement and implementation should be maximising benefit to cost ratio; a well thought out end-to-end solution tied with maintenance processes can deliver this; a sensor measurement system without data quality control and management will overwhelm the operator with too much raw data and deliver little business value. Rail Vision works with its customers every step of the way to increase their benefit to cost ratio providing them with equipment sales/lease and services on operations, maintenance and cloud based data analytics/AI tools/review/reporting.
Rail Vision advantage includes:
1. Our solutions are built around latest in sensors and AI. Several vendors still have legacy systems as the cost of adopting new technology is high.
We use the latest sensors, e.g. cameras operating at 200KHz, high definition laser profilers developed for railway applications, LED lights emitting 400,000 Lux, and data acquisition at 0.5mm per pixel at train speeds of 200Kmph. Most competing systems are built on legacy technology and deliver lower quality diagnostics.
2. We provide end-to-end solutions. Others do not.
Data quality control and digital data services with a cloud front-end are integral to our solutions to minimise IT data management at customer end. Most companies provide diagnostic product only that can generate reports; digital interface not provided; customers have high IT costs. We can help configure data archiving systems for our customers to suit their needs.
3. We provide flexible sale and lease solutions with data services. Only a few do that.
Lease solutions are available where customers do not want to have a large Capex cost.
4. We provide solutions for passenger trains that do not inconvenience passengers or take up in-cabin space. Others do not.
TrackVue series is ideally suited for all classes of vehicles including mainline passenger trains, trams, underground trains. TrackVue LT is an ideal solution for Metros.
5. We provide complete sensor package as one system. Others do not.
TrackVue product for track inspection combines sensors for linescan imaging, rail profiling, track geometry and rail wheel interface, all with a single piece of hardware and single installation; information is easy to cross-reference. With other vendors, multiple systems and installations are needed to cover linescan imaging, rail profiling and track geometry functionality.
6. We provide Rail Wheel Interface diagnostics for predictive maintenance. Others do not.
TrackVue RWI measurements are unique and not available through other suppliers. These help in extending rail and wheel life and predictive maintenance and optimise rail grinding.
7. We provide Digital Data Management tools and services. Only a few do that.
We can provide detailed data management, quality control, remote operations and other services beyond the initial sale such that all maintenance reports are accurate.
8. We provide Cloud Data Services and Quality Control services.
We provide detailed web interface for customers to review analysis, use maintenance tools, download reports. Our Rail Vision cloud services provide users with detailed data for maintenance, strategic and operational planning. In addition, we provide data quality control services as a highly recommended part of our offering. All analysed data is semi-automatically cleaned for reporting such that the customer does not spend any time on filtering data for maintenance actions.