Railroad Logistics

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Railroad Streamlines
Operations With RFID
VR Transpoint
Mikko Särkkä,
Head of IT, Logistics
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Finland’s leading logistics operator
Railroad Logistics
•Domestic and international
•Long-standing relations with Russian
Railways
FTL Logistics
•FTL conveyance in bulk
•Warehousing services
International Logistics
•International transports
•Warehousing
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VR Transpoint, key figures (2011)
• Turnover €594.7M
– Railroad transportations €321.8M
– Road transportations €277.4M
• Tonnes ~43.3M (Rail ~34.8M / Road ~8.5M)
• Personnel ~2500
• Premises
– Finland 85
– Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Russia
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VR Group, key figures (2011)
• Turnover €1400M
• Personnel ~11400
• Number of trains operated per day
– 450 freight trains
– 310 long-haul passenger trains
– 890 commuter trains
– 10 passenger trains to Russia
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Table of Contents
• The solution & standards
• Using RFID at VR Transpoint’s Rail Yard
• What’s next
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Challenges and objectives
• VR Transpoint had challenges to manage process
with
– Major part of the work force in car shunting
– Substantial part of workforce resources in steering the
shunting work in rail-yards
– Manual work took time and possibility of human error
was existent
VR Transpoint wanted to rationalize this manual
process, and the objective was to increase automation
level in rail-yard processes
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To steer rail-yard work & to track
10,000 rail-cars with RFID
• Operational process changes within rail yards enabled
• Better management manage of train compositions
• Better management of rail car location, loading status,
car defects & maintenance orders
• Improved customer service enabled, by delivering
detailed information to customers regarding which
shipments have arrived, and when
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Operational process changes
• Planning & supervising of rail-yard shunting work
was centralized & rationalized to few locations in
Finland
• Pen-and-paper work was removed by using PDA
devices
• Real-time information is now at use of internal &
external operators
• The accuracy of information has improved thus
manual errors can be avoided
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What else is possible?
• New customer applications are being enabled
based either on the RFID tags or the on-line
information
• VR can interphase customers with wagon arrival
information to end-station & delivery information
real-time
• Customers can interphase VR in order to send
shunting orders
• Physical tags can also be read and information
can be used independently by customers
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RFID – Applications for railroads
• Fixed track-side RFID-readers
– at rail-yards and at terminals
– at depot rails
– at the network
• Applications
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Flat wheel detectors
Wheel profile equipment
Hot Axle Detectors
Demurrage automation
• Mobile work steering system – the rolling stock is
identified as a part of the shunting work
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In the beginning challenge was to find
correct global standard for the RFID system
• Guide lines at EU level railroad sector regulations
were out-dated
• After a dialogue with other railway organizations of
European countries, VR Transpoint decided to
implement GS1 EPC standard
• Our selection of standard:
– EPC Gen2 / ISO 18000 6-C (passive-RFID) with GS1 Global
Individual Asset identifier (GIAI) number
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Table of Contents
• The solution & standards
• Using RFID at VR Transpoint’s Rail Yard
• What’s next
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RFID project started at 2009
• Today 100 % of the rolling stock is equipped with the RFID
tags (10,000 freight cars & locomotives included)
• Handheld RFID-PDAs are in production use in the rail yards
• First customer application projects with the fixed track-side
reader on-going
• RFID use in other rolling stock applications
– wheel profile measurement & car-washing tracking
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Working in real time at rail-yards
• With the support RFID tags and the RFID-PDAs we
can use the old mainframe transportation & train
management systems directly at rail yards
• Less manual work
• Real time information for the all users of the systems
• Enabled operational change & saving in manpower
(less operational steering offices)
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Functionalities build in PDAs
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read and report shunting orders
read and update the train composition
read, update and report wagon defects
report wagon restrictions to the system
report all wagon movements & locations
check reports train ready for departure
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Train information
Reporting shunting
Checking train
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Table of Contents
• The solution & standards
• Using RFID at VR Transpoint’s Rail Yard
• What’s next
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New developments since GO-LIVE
• Fixed RFID track-side readers, projects ongoing or starting
– At customer location, automating wagon
movement tracking
– At railroad hump yard, automating/ensuring
wagon groups for the hump
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New developments
Passenger traffic
• Hand-held RFID-PDA taken into use at some rail-yard
• Washing application for passenger cars
Maintenance
• Rolling stock condition monitoring enabled with
automatic identification of vehicles
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