INTRO: Bangladesh Railways is the Asian launch customer for an upgraded version of the RailTracker Advance Cargo Information System that allows shippers and forwarders to keep track of their cargoes
FRAU Renate Schmidt, Chief Executive of a major international forwarding company dealing with Asia and Africa, sat at her office desk one morning quietly running her business from the headquarters in Bad Wagenheim, a small town in Germany. Needless to say, Frau Schmidt was a very busy lady, running an international business and co-ordinating her activities through regional offices in Frankfurt, New York, Geneva, Johannesburg and Bangkok.
She currently had thousands of clients’ containers moving across the world, some of which were moving by rail, but this was her business and her mind was at rest knowing that RailTracker could find any of her cargo on those railways using the Advance Cargo Information System (ACIS). But this was a new development and not all her staff knew about it.
Suddenly a new member of her operations department flew into the office announcing that Mr Ling Ping Ching, a major shipper, had complained that his containers were lost somewhere in Bangladesh and that a major disaster was looming. Frau Schmidt leant back in her executive-padded chair and smiled, unfortunately knocking her young colleague off his feet. With a smile she said calmly: ’why don’t you just log into Bangladesh Railways’ RailTracker and find the containers?’
Her colleague was flabbergasted. Obviously the novelty of such an easy thing had not entered his mind, or had he been badly trained? To cut a long story short and to avoid embarrassing her young colleague, Frau Schmidt asked for the container numbers. She then switched on her portable computer and modem and dialled her local Internet service provider.
A friendly screen answered, informing her that she had logged into RailTracker live on the Bangladesh Railway network. She was asked what she wanted to do, so she clicked the ’find’ box and entered the container numbers. Within seconds Frau Schmidt knew the location of all the so-called lost containers; in fact, she was also told the whole history of the different consignments since loading.
She printed all this information, logged out of her computer, turned off the modem and handed the sheet to her colleague, saying with another smile ’just fax this to Mr Ching and tell him to calm down - also tell him that as we use ACIS RailTracker, we are far more efficient than anyone else!’
Of course Frau Schmidt used the Internet for consultations with any of the railways where ACIS RailTracker was operating as a matter of course. So what on earth is ACIS RailTracker all about, mused the young colleague as he retreated from his boss’s office.
Enhancements benefit customers
The story underlines how ACIS RailTracker has been further developed since it was first described in Rail Business Report 1995 while holding fast to the initial aim of enhancing customer service. A unique feature of RailTracker is the link between the commercial aspects (the consignment note) and the operational and engineering aspects of railway management in a single data model design.
The story also highlights how RailTracker has overcome the difficult physical environments for which it was designed, such as poor telecoms, poor power supply, and so on. Several new functionalities have been brought on stream:
