Inspection and Surveying

We provide end-to-end diagnostic service that generates business and safety benefits for the customer

Diagnostic equipment require engineering expertise to use and benefit from integrating their diagnostics with maintenance. The overall process involves:

1. Data Collection, the process of collecting raw sensor data using train-borne or wayside equipment
2. Data Analytics, the process of analysing this raw data, either on-board or offline, or in combination, to generate useful measurements
3. Data Quality Control, the process of remove false positives and false negatives with semi-automated approaches that use track baseline historical data as intelligence in order to reduce work on data cleaning for customers prior to maintenance
4. AI Post Processing, a process of applying various automated big data analysis and machine learning tools to understand data collectively from multiple sensors and using track design data and past maintenance for predictive maintenance, understanding root causes behind rapidly deteriorating assets and strategic planning.
5. Data delivery, the process of delivering the required measurement data to the customer easily and in a format required by them often using cloud based service
6. Maintenance decision making, the process of customer and supplier working together with experts to make maintenance decisions for increasing asset life, safety and track capacity where an accurate understanding of measurements and what they mean is needed.

It may be appreciated that with different customers with varying budgets, several different configurations may be adopted where customers buy or lease equipment, and choose to operate it themselves or get a full data delivery service, and have either a detailed IT set-up for data management or may want the supplier to provide this. Irrespective of how the business terms work, all steps listed above are key to a successful implementation.

Rail Vision is in the business of providing inspection services 1 to 6 listed above as a complete diagnostic system

Rail Vision can provide equipment, its installation, vehicles for inspection if needed, operational workforce, data analysis services and expert consultancy as required to put together a comprehensive data diagnostic process for the customer. We work with our partners and contractors to undertake such work that are local to the end customer to ensure that long-term support can be provided. In some cases, the end-customer themselves are a partner as they take on some of the diagnostic tasks. In all cases, we ensure that all required steps of a successful diagnostic delivery are fully covered.

Effort and costs

The effort and costs related to the use of diagnostic equipment for Track Inspection is directly related to mileage, and in case of wayside equipment related to the number of vehicles scanned. Customers must pay attention to the following:

• Simply collecting data that does not get processed is of no value. Terrabytes of data cannot be manually screened.
• Inspection diagnostics is not only collecting raw data and using a algorithm to generate measurements. All steps 1 to 6 must be carried out to successful use of such data into maintenance practices. This process is costly and costs are linearly related to volume of data
• Customers need to pay attention to minimal required inspection frequencies and then decide on how much inspection should be performed. Attempts to over-inspect will lead to the entire operation crumbling under the weight of excessive data which cannot be turned around into meaningful actions within a sensible period of time.
• Costs are directly related to the cost of equipment, cost of operations, cost of data management and delivery.

The costs of technology must be evaluated in the context of savings from increased safety and predictive maintenance. The ratio of benefits to investment must be maximised.