On 9 October, UIC Director General Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux participated in a webinar organised by Russell Publishing entitled “Digital Rail Revolution: What are the top five trends and challenges in rail digitalisation?” and moderated by Christine Kraft, Project Manager of ETCS at DB Kommunikationstechnik (Telecommunication technology). The webinar was followed by over 100 registrants joining it live from a variety of locations.
Among the keynote speakers there were Marleen Verheyen, Strategic Coordinator at Infrabel, Dieter Galle, Data Scientist at Infrabel, Ivan Rochford, Business Engineer at SKF, and Jean-Pierre Loubinoux. Among the themes discussed were:
- Cyber security – with the widespread use of IoT, how can operators and authorities protect themselves and their customers?
- Smart assets – in what ways can they improve operations, how can they be retro-fitted and what are companies using them for?
- Predictive maintenance – how can the positives be monitored and how can the technology be used to its fullest potential?
- Signalling – how can train companies maintain and operate ERTMS safely? What are the positives of train companies sharing their best practice?
- IoT – how can train companies ensure IoT devices are able to withstand harsh railway environments?
- Focusing on the passenger – how can we improve the passenger journey and experience with new digital initiatives?
Jean-Pierre Loubinoux gave his top five trends and challenges in rail digitalisation:
- Productivity in capacity optimisation and predictability of maintenance
- Safety & cyber safety and security, facial recognition, intelligent mix of telecom protocols and signalling processes
- Dematerialised services, in real time, thanks to Wi-Fi and 5G connectivity, and the development of connected objects
- Management of the interfaces to ensure the fluidity of the logistics chain in railway stations and intermodal logistic centres
- Thanks to creativity, preserving artificial intelligence and machine learning as tools serve human intelligence, itself serving society
