Innovation in Rail Transportation Management: Making Train and Work Scheduling Easier

By Nichole Peterson, Senior Product Manager, Wabtec

The Challenge

Train scheduling is at the heart of any railroad. It is a time-consuming process. From assigning origination-destination pairs and interim station points to determining crew schedules and work lists, the process requires brainpower and time. And all of this against the backdrop of an environment where speed is a competitive advantage.

Solving Pain Points

As part of the modernization of RailConnect™ Transportation Management, Wabtec is simplifying daily tasks, adding new features and functionality to reduce the number of touch points and empower the workforce. Service planning is a great example. This initiative, currently under development, combines easy to use templates with real time planning tools and decision support to streamline the process of building trains and scheduling rail cars. It is designed to help railroads achieve speed, efficiency, consistency, and visibility in scheduling for improved performance.

Service Planning Capabilities

Automatic Route Generation Template:

• Easy creation of routes with automatic fill of stations based on origin-destination pair
• Supports one-way, round-trip, and branch line routes

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Work Schedule Planning Tool:

• Easy definition of the work that needs to be done
• Build trains and schedule cars in one easy step
• Auto populates shipper data based on serving stations
• Includes five work types for easy assignment
• Schedule versioning and history

Enhanced Work List:

• Integrated with the Work Schedule and Planning engine
• Organizes work tasks for easy execution by crews
• Easy to add work: Identify intra plant switches to the crew worklist. Identify all work the crew is performing – not just assigned work
• Real time exception reporting for work not completed
• Accessible from desktop or mobile device

Breakthrough Reporting Capabilities

• New data reporting with historical archiving for trend and comparison analysis

Learn More

• Join me at a live webinar where I will demonstrate these capabilities. Register here.

About the Author

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Nichole Peterson is the Senior Product Manager for RailConnect Transportation Management. She works closely with customers to ensure that RailConnect unlocks value and propels the rail industry to new heights of operational performance. Prior to joining Wabtec, Nichole worked at a major short line railroad as an operations leader. Nichole is a graduate of Mount Mercy University.