Ubisense move into transport systems

Ubisense have announced an extension to the Transit Yard Manager application. These extensions allow the product to meet the requirements of rail yards and added the capability to monitor and control maintenance processes. “We are pleased to be able to expand our transit industry solutions to the rail industry,” commented Jay Cadman, VP Sales and Marketing. “Accurate location is driving process improvements for our customers and we anticipate expanding further into other areas such as MRO and terminal solutions by working closely in conjunction with our customers.”

Ubisense’s experience in deploying their solution in the transit industry showed them that rail yards and maintenance facilities experience similar problems to bus transit facilities. The Transit Yard Manager solution supports the precision location of engines and cars. The application reliably tracks both the orientation of the engine or car and its location to a precision of 12 inches. The TYM web-based interface provides a simple means to search for specific rolling stock or groups of assets that share similar characteristics. This reduces the amount of manual time spent documenting their location and provides reliable data to more effectively manage yard operations. Rail operators are able to use the application to provide indoor and outdoor visibility of their yards, and providing data on rail yard processes so they can be streamlined, reducing maintenance costs and inventory levels.

Ubisense Transit Yard Manager is installed in both bus and rail operations at locations around the world including Metro Transit (Minneapolis) and JNGV in Jena, Germany. Ubisense is completing its first installation in a large American passenger rail company

Ubisense also announced that the Transit Yard Manager now integrates with GIRO’s HASTUS™ software and supports real-time information exchange with HASTUS, an integrated and modular solution for optimized transit planning, scheduling, and operations

By providing schedule system integration through a real-time connection to the HASTUS solution, a dispatcher can select a piece of work in the scheduling system, highlight a bus on the interactive map in Transit Yard Manager, and “click to assign”. The application can then send the vehicle number and location to HASTUS. With exact vehicle location in a yard, it is also possible to further automate the scheduling process using optimisation tools available within HASTUS.

Transit Yard Manager from Ubisense provides real-time visibility for indoor garages and outdoor transit yards to an accuracy of less than one meter, delivering exact bay, lane, and position information instantaneously. The system utilises ultra-wideband (UWB) technology to provide up-to-the-minute, precise location tracking performance in tightly enclosed cluttered areas where other RFID and wireless technologies fail. Ubisense Transit Yard Manager eliminates the costs associated with manually logging the constantly moving vehicles in a yard, and ensures that the vehicle is parked exactly where is shown in the system.

“One of the principal driving forces for transit agencies to deploy an automated vehicle location system within garages and yards is to increase the efficiencies with scheduling. By connecting to HASTUS in real time, agencies will now be able to automatically indicate to driver operators the location of the vehicle without having to enter this information manually,” said Ubisense CEO Americas, Russ Chandler. “We are excited to be able to work with our partners at GIRO to provide this additional capability to our customers.”