Video Analytics Tool Enhances Railroad Safety

Video Analytics Tool Enhances Railroad Safety

railroad

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The surge in commuter rail and metro development highlights the security and safety problems associated with railroads. Video analytics onboard tools are among the technological solutions.

Wi-Tronix will provide its video analytics solution, Violet, to Mexican Class I railroad, Ferromex, a private rail consortium that operates the largest (by mileage) railway in Mexico.

Violet turns locomotive information into data that can be used. It provides both snapshots and streaming video and associated data to railroads through a cloud-based SaaS solution to help railroads to improve their operational efficiency and safety procedures.

FerromexWi-Tronix, the leader in smart rail technology, announced this significant deployment as a further expansion of its existing relationship with the railroad. This latest installation expands Ferromex’s reliance on Wi-Tronix to support its ecosystem for the collection and utility of operational-critical data.

The railroad’s access to this information improves overall efficiency and ensures that critical safety information is available in real time to all areas of railroad management. It also further demonstrates the system’s expandability and its ability to grow with Ferromex into the future, according to the announcement on prweb.com.

Violet camera and video analytics systems expand dramatically upon railroads’ traditional uses of locomotive digital video recorders (DVR). The solution aggregates petabytes of video data in an Internet of Things approach to create actionable information from the locomotive video.

The new camera system will further ensure the safety of the railway company crew and the security of both its assets and its cargo. The system’s smart Visual Intelligence (VI) technology has the ability to provide the railroad with video analytics which can automatically monitor infrastructure and other mission-critical assets.

Larry Jordan, Wi-Tronix President and Chief Technology Officer, said: “This strategic decision to adopt Violet technology allows Ferromex to further optimize their technology investments and to most cost effectively solve their safety and security concerns. Violet VI and Virtual Reality (VR) technology takes safety and security solutions to new levels.”

According Wi-Tronix’ website, the system includes a data acquisition recording system, a positive train control (PTC) event recorder, a digital video recorder, a business-critical data remote monitoring device and a fuel monitoring system. The software is hosted on Wi-Tronix back office website, which gives the user secure, cloud-based access to real-time, streaming event recorder data. Users with proper credentials can set up and receive customized emails for train handling alerts and exceptions and “share” events with colleagues without sending a traditional file or download.