INTERNATIONAL: Hitachi Rail and Intermodal Telematics have signed a long-term exclusive partnership agreement which will see the Dutch company’s monitoring technology added to Hitachi Rail’s digital rail freight platform.
The initial focus will be on European and North American markets, with Edoardo La Ficara, Chief Operating Officer at Hitachi Rail, saying the technology would ‘provide a radical evolution for the freight industry, whose railcars are overwhelmingly without any telematics or monitoring whatsoever’.
IMT’s real-time sensors monitor a wagon’s location, loading status, whether the doors and hatches are open, the temperature and pressure of the cargo and the condition of bogies and wheelsets. Data is uploaded to a cloud platform using solar-powered devices, enabling operators to track a wagon and its load in real time.
Hitachi Rail said the partnership with IMT would complement its purchase of condition monitoring sensor supplier Perpetuum last year, as it can now able to offer a complete real-time monitoring package.
IMT will be the exclusive supplier of Perpetuum sensors in the freight market, with Managing Director Dethmer Drenth saying IMT will now be able to ‘create a holistic view of the wagon above and below the axle, alerting the asset and cargo owner on a need-to-know and managing-by-exception basis.’
