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Smart cameras will improve railway efficiency

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Work with identification and registration of rail cars with freight often takes place manually at the terminals, which is both expensive and very time-consuming. A new technology which automatically registers the cars in real time is being demonstrated in Europe.

The challenges for the transport system of the future are numerous, which makes the demand for innovative products and technologies greater than ever before. Transport Logisitic in Munich is one of the world's leading logistics trade fairs with more than 60,000 visitors. The Swedish Transport Administration, Port of Gothenburg and several other partners from the FR8HUB logistics project, which is part of the Shift2Rail railways research programme, were on location to demonstrate one of their key technologies.

'Using our solution, Intelligent Video Gate, we can use smart cameras, sensors and RFID technology to collect data about the freight cars travelling on the railway and handle information in real time. The work is safer and more time-efficient,' says Jan Bergstrand of the Swedish Transport Administration.

Great interest

The prototype of the technology rolled non-stop during the trade fair and there were numerous people who were interested in and curious about the solution.

'Demon, a model train connected to a camera and RFID reader, may look like a game, but the fact is that the model is realistic and ready for use. The goal is to be able to implement intelligent Video Gate in full scale at a few terminals within a year,' says Jan Bergstrand of the Swedish Transport Administration.

'Everyone wants to digitalise in some manner. Presenting Intelligent Video Gate in this context gives more parties the opportunity to see the potential in the technology and to begin to discuss how it could be adapted to their requirements,' says Nicklas Blidberg, project manager for FR8HUB

 

FR8HUB and Shift2Rail
Shift2Rail is the first cooperative European railway technology project for the rail system of tomorrow. By request from the Swedish Transport Administration, CLOSER is acting as a cluster coordinator at Lindholmen Science Park for Swedish operators within the framework for the work within Shift2Rail innovation program 5 – freight transportation and is supporting the Swedish Transport Administration as project manager in the project FR8HUB.  Read more about Shift2Rail