Swedish Transport Gets on Track With RFID
The government agency developed a preventative-maintenance solution for railway vehicles, based on global standards.
By Samuel Greengard
Tags: Logistics, Operations, Standards, Transport
Jun 23, 2013—
The Swedish Transport Administration, known as Trafikverket, oversees the country's state-owned 13,000-kilometer (8,077-mile) network of trains and track. Keeping its heavily used mechanical equipment from breaking was a formidable challenge. The Swedish railway operates 150 detector stations to monitor wheel damage and other problems on railway vehicles (or wagons), but the system could only issue a general alarm and could not identify individual vehicles. If a problem was detected, the train would have to stop at the next station, so the driver could visually check and touch the wheels to ascertain if any were hot. The government agency knew that preventative maintenance was key to providing uninterrupted service and controlling costs, so it developed a radio frequency identification solution to monitor the condition of wheels, axles and other equipment.
"In the past, we had only visual inspections in place, and no reliable statistics or measurements connected to individual vehicles," says Gunnar Ivansson, a consultant atLearningWell AB, which helped the Swedish Transport Administration develop the monitoring system. "By identifying each vehicle with RFID and obtaining exact measurements, it is now possible to detect problems early. There is a huge cost savings related to avoiding damage to tracks, and there is a diminished risk of a derailment due to an equipment failure."