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10/22/2020
Norfolk Southern Railway, GATX Corp., Genesee & Wyoming Inc., TrinityRail and Watco Cos. LLC yesterday announced a venture to create a technology platform that will help transform rail shipping.
The new venture, Rail Pulse, will facilitate and accelerate the adoption of GPS and other telematics technology across the North American rail-car fleet, NS officials said in a press release.
In addition to funding from the Federal Railroad Administration, the venture will receive investments from Pennsylvania as well as from the venture members to support the platform's development.
The venture members, which collectively own nearly 20% of the North American rail-car fleet, aim to accelerate the adoption of telematics to meet two specific objectives. The first is safety. Early phases of the platform will incorporate hand brake and impact data, both of which could provide important safety data for the railroads, car owners and shippers, NS officials said.
The second objective is to increase rail's competitiveness relative to other modes by improving visibility into rail-car status, location and condition, which can contribute to rail-industry growth, they said. Telematics capabilities will include data capture to support real-time track-level visibility, whether doors or hatches are open, whether the car is loaded or partially loaded, and other key performance metrics.
Rail Pulse is being launched for the benefit of the entire rail ecosystem, venture members said. The venture intends to provide a neutral, open-architecture, industry-wide rail-car telematics platform to make it easier to shop by rail and track rail shipments while ensuring the safety and security of proprietary car-owner data, they added.
"Rail Pulse is another example of how the freight-rail industry is using advanced technology to enhance safety and service to shippers," said Jennie Granger, deputy secretary of for multimodal transportation at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. "We look forward to this platform being implemented throughout the North American rail-car fleet."
The Rail Pulse partners will begin developing the platform later this year and expect a full-service platform to be available by the end of 2022.