
Electronically controlled railway brakes may displace a 150-year-old technology - mulmen
http://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/mass-transit/stop-that-train
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hartror
This is well out of date (2009), electronically controlled brakes have already
proven their worth, at least for our customers [1]. For example one of our
customers, Rio Tinto in Western Australia, deployed ECP which allowed them to
reduce headway [2]. Along with driverless trains, operations optimisation
software and other innovations allows them run more trains and get more iron
ore to port with the same infrastructure.

[1] I am CTO of a railroad operations software startup
[http://biarrirail.com/](http://biarrirail.com/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headway)

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nickpsecurity
So what's the failure risk of the new model vs the old model? It seems like
the old thing used straightforward physics and mechanics. Whereas the new
thing is more complex both in implementation and types of things it relies on.
I'm sure they might have insurance that negates this consideration but I still
consider human life. ;)

Note: It might also be worth considering how many of the braking events are
safety-critical.

~~~
hartror
Agreed, however I have not seen any specifics on that, the headway changes had
a direct effect on our software, reliability and maintenance aren't factors
for us.

Rio Tinto are extremely safety conscious, for example they drug and alcohol
test everyone, regardless of role even vendors. They're also operating in the
Pilbara region an incredibly harsh desert environment in Western Australia. So
I would guess that they wouldn't accept an increase in safety risks and the
trade off between risk of break downs, maintenance cost and the throughput of
their rail network is positive.

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mrfusion
Why not regenerative braking?

Also generating eddy currents against the rails would be a cool way to slow
down without wearing down brake pads.

~~~
mulmen
That raises an interesting question about the life of rail car brakes.

The cost of constant attention seems like it would be significant. I wonder
how the brakes are constructed to minimize maintenance costs.

The article does mention adding other sensor data to the ECP bus, brake life
could be monitored in real time.

~~~
hartror
That is right. IoT technolgy is a big deal in the rail market, for example
GE's Evolution locos produce 150,000 data points per minute. This can feed
real-time analytics as well as predictive maintenance requirements, which the
company I work for deals with.

~~~
mulmen
This is actually really interesting. How granular are these metrics? Do
individual bearings have sensors on them for example? Does the locomotive cut
a maintenance ticket when light bulbs burn out? How many different sensors
contribute to the 150,000 data points?

~~~
hartror
The statistic comes from this article: [http://www.cnet.com/news/at-ge-making-
the-most-advanced-loco...](http://www.cnet.com/news/at-ge-making-the-most-
advanced-locomotives-in-history/)

