Active Control Parameters Monitoring for Freight Trains, Using Wireless Sensor Network Platform and Internet of Things

Abstract

Operating in a dynamic and competitive global market, railway companies have realized many years ago that better management of their logistical operations will enhance their strategic positions on the market. The financial component of daily operations is of utmost importance these days and many companies concluded that maximizing the profit relies on the integration of logistical activities with better income management. This paper presents a system consisting of three components: Ferodata BOX, Ferodata MOBILE, and Ferodata SYS, used to transmit to a web-server the status and operating information of an electric or diesel train. Train information includes data from locomotives, wagons, train driver, route, direction, fuel or electric consumption, speed, etc. All this information is processed in real-time and can be viewed in the web-server application. Additionally, the web-server application could manage and report details that are coming from the wagons, such as valuable information regarding the bogie wear, the identification of the wagons attached to a gasket, and identification the situations in which a wagon or group of wagons comes off the gasket configuration. All information about the status of trains is available on-line and at any moment the person responsible for management can use these data in their work.

Industry 4.0 Technologies Applied to the Rail Transportation Industry: A Systematic Review

“…Usually, proposed studies in this subcategory collect and process train information in real time to improve daily operations and profit. Authors in [ 60 ] proposed a monitoring freight-train system using wireless sensors, IoT and a web-server application as a visualization tool. This solution called FEDORATA system can track freight-train parameters (geographical position, vibration, temperature, velocity, fuel or electricity consumption, etc.)…”

“…Therefore, merging problems can be present when multiple freight trains are in congested areas or monitoring systems must be developed specifically for these trains. Solutions such as a train scheduling algorithm for only freight trains [ 26 ], monitoring systems for freight trains [ 60 ] or a DAS for merging freight trains in complex environments [ 53 ] are some examples. Additionally, there are solutions for only the passenger transportation mode such as a travel connectivity for train passengers [ 78 ], or for both modes such as a scheduling algorithm for freight and passenger trains [ 93 ] that is useful when rail tracks are shared.…”

Innovative Integrated Solution for Monitoring and Protection of Power Supply System from Railway Infrastructure

“…Moreover, the development of mobile phone networks worldwide with increasing performance, the propagation of the Internet and wireless communication techniques make it possible to move many applications from the conceptual level to their practical realization, such as vehicle driving, monitoring, remote control and remote diagnosis of various electrical equipment items and installations, even in the field of railway infrastructure [44,[52][53][54][55][56]. Nowadays, there are several communication modes and they can be classified (depending on the data transmission mode) into two main categories: Wired and wireless.…”

Improvement of the Last Mile-Specific Issues in Railway Freight Transport

“…In ref [4], freight trains are dispatched by the Internet of things. Advantages of this method are the exact location of the shipment for the dispatcher of the transport company and for the customer too.…”