zprávy

On October 21, 2011 Europe took a major step in its space history by launching the first two operational Galileo satellites at 12h30 CET from Kourou, French Guiana. That day the EU came one step closer to having its own Global Navigation Satellite System.

Galileo is the European Union navigation and positioning system, and currently, the world’s most precise global navigation satellite system (GNSS), serving more than 2.3 billion users globally. To date, the constellation consists of 26 satellites orbiting the Earth at an altitude of around 23,000 km, is 100% financed by the EU and is supported by a range of terrestrial centers and sensors across the globe. Since the launch of the services in December 2016, the system has been going from strength to strength to become the backbone of a series of value-adding services that ensure the wellbeing of EU citizens and guarantee the Union’s autonomy and sovereignty. 

Galileo is impacting the European economy as 11% of the EU GDP is enabled by satellite navigation according to experts. Thanks to the EU satellite navigation system, the Union has been able to boost its digitization strategy, support the EU Green Deal, and drive economic growth. For instance, the use of Galileo in vehicles can reduce journey times by more than 10% and thus contribute to reducing emissions of harmful and polluting substances. Throughout the years, the European Union saw a set of technological breakthroughs from the eCall implementation in newly produced cars to the Galileo Return Link (RLS), a unique feature of the Galileo Search and Rescue service. 

One step closer to Full Operational Capability (FOC)

On December 1st, 2021, two new satellites are expected to lift off from Kourou French Guyana on a Soyuz rocket at 00:35 (GMT). The launch of these satellites will bring the programme one step closer to its Full Operational Capability (FOC). This launch takes place few months after the new Space Regulation entered into force. The Regulation brings an improved governance between the European space actors and provides the necessary budget certainty for the next seven years.

Galileo is continuing to evolve. New services, currently under testing, will soon be available to users opening new market opportunities across various industries. 

With the Galileo High Accuracy Service (HAS), Galileo will pioneer a worldwide, free high-accuracy positioning service aimed at applications that require higher performance such as drones and autonomous cars.

The Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) is set to contribute to the detection of GNSS attacks. This forthcoming service is an authentication mechanism that allows GNSS receivers to verify the authenticity of GNSS information, making sure that the data received are indeed from Galileo and have not been modified in any way. 

Galileo grows strong thanks to a robust 3D collaboration

With the European Commission at the helm, Galileo is the result of unprecedented cooperation between, legislators, space industry actors and above all EU Member States. The European Space Agency has been a trusted partner in terms of designing the system architecture while the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) as exploitation manager, guarantees the provision of safe, secure, state-of-the-art services around the clock to EU citizens but also to a growing group of users around the world. 

"At EUSPA, we are committed to taking the EU Space to the next level. Collaboration between EUSPA, European Commission and ESA is the basis for it. Each partner has unique and complementary functions and competencies," says Rodrigo da Costa, EUSPA Executive Director. 

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020

Space based services will help reduce 15% of railway maintenance costs, 25% of maintenance unscheduled events and 15% of derailments associated with the rail-wheel interface. To tackle this challenge, the SIA consortium brings together multidisciplinary and cross sector partners (EGNSS technology providers, research centres, IT companies and railway stakeholders) that will co-design EGNSS solutions truly adapted to the needs of the rail sector.

Railway infrastructure and vehicle maintenance are estimated to cost over 25 billion Euros per year in Europe, and this figure is rising1 . The distribution of maintenance expenses varies in different countries and organizations. However, in relation to the railway infrastructure, track expenses represent between 40%-70% of the operational expenses, where the defects associated with the rails and catenary are the most significant (30% and 50% respectively). Other major maintenance costs relate to vehicle equipment such as the wheelset and pantograph (typically between 30%-50% and 5%-10% of the overall vehicle’s maintenance cost respectively). These figures are similar for all the infrastructure managers (IMs) and train operating companies (TOCs), which in total accounts for 330 organizations in the EU and 1500 organisations worldwide, therefore incurring over 8 billion Euros in recurrent expenses in the EU.

SIA project (System for vehicle-infrastructure Interaction Assets health status monitoring) has been funded by EUSPA since 2018 with the objective of developing four ready-to-use new services, to provide prognostic information about the health status of railways’ most demanding assets in terms of maintenance costs, at the points of the interaction between the vehicle and the infrastructure (wheelset, pantograph, rail, and catenary).

iCatMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors. The service provides information about the status of the overhead line (e.g. geometry of the Overhead Contact Wire - OCW).

iPantMon is intended for TOCs, providing information about the status of the pantograph during its interaction with the OCW (e.g. contact dynamics).

iWheelMon is also intended for TOCs, this service provides information about the health status of the wheelset (e.g. wheel diameter, out-of-roundness).

iRailMon is a service oriented towards IMs and maintenance subcontractors, the service provides information about defects on the rails (e.g. short-wave irregularities).

To enable these services, a modular system with all of the required components from vehicle sensor networks to KPI visualization for the end user has been developed. The value proposition of SIA is to develop these components in the most cost-effective way, i.e. with the use of cost-effective sensors and systems. 

The SIA components include a sub-system for the recording of axle-box acceleration (ABA) data that can be related to defects in the track and wheelset. Another sub-system includes sensors that provide signals to characterize the interaction between the pantograph and catenary. EGNSS- based localization is performed, with real time processing of GNSS signals in multiple frequency bands including Galileo and map-supported refinement using Kalman filter methods in the back-office. A central datahub provides the onboard data management and communicates with the back-office part of SIA, for instance, to send events or detections in the monitoring data. The axle-box acceleration and pantograph data enriched with position information are further processed using component degradation models and analysis algorithms in the back-office. Finally, relevant asset key performance indicators (KPI) are displayed to the user in the visualization platform, with a rich functionality to illustrate the asset status and its evolution using different capabilities. 

To validate the results, pilot tests have been carried out since October 2020 in three different scenarios: one of them coordinated by OBB (Österreichische Bundesbahnen), the Austrian operator, using both inspection vehicles and regular in-service trains throughout Austrian rail network; another scenario coordinated by VIAS, a Spanish maintenance subcontractor, using for the installation of the system a maintenance vehicle circulating over Madrid-Córdoba high-speed line; and the third scenario was coordinated by FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya), a Spanish regional TOC, using regular in-service trains throughout its whole network.

The results obtained so far are very promising. The aim is to validate the use of low-cost on-board systems to assess the health status of infrastructure and vehicle assets using the four developed services. Part of this success is due to the use of digital twins and AI technologies to extract health related KPIs. Some of the activities within the project contributed to the creation of a tech startup (MainRail Solutions), dedicated to the management of railway infrastructure. This start-up, created by Ceit and Inycom (linked third party of INGECONTROL) in 2020, has initiated its activities by deploying its first commercial references, e.g. tranvía Zaragoza (Spain)  and SFM (Mallorca Railways, Spain) and PoC (Proof of Concept) pilots with other TOCs and IMs in Spain.

The implementation of the SIA system in regular service trains will enable a reduction in the costs associated with maintenance, while keeping the required levels of safety and service availability. The low-cost nature of the on-board equipment and the capabilities brought by the new services can potentially lead to reductions of 10% in the cost of the maintenance associated to the infrastructure’s assets, thanks to a reduction of unscheduled actions and MTTR (Mean Time To React).

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the EUSPA website (http://www.euspa.europa.eu).

• 1. Using analytics to get European rail maintenance on track, McKinsey & Company, 2020