Safety of Railways workers can be improved with PNT technologies. Register for the Final Presentation Webinar EL2-077 “Safety Enhancement of Maintenance Operators in Railway worksites (SEMOR)"
Start date: 25/10/2022 10:00
End date: 25/10/2022 11:30
The operators in railway working sites are exposed to risk if the railway traffic is not completely suspended. Workers protection is based on Automatic Track Warning Systems (ATWS), that detect if a train is approaching the working site and activate an alarm to clear the danger area. The decision to consider the danger area cleared and to enable the train to pass is under the responsibilities of the working site manager, who has, in a few seconds, to decide, on the basis of his sight and perception, that the yard area is cleared and all the workers and machines are in a safe position. In these conditions, the risk of human error is quite high.
The SEMOR solution aims at providing the site manager with PNT technological support to verify that workers are in the safe area.
This solution consists of three subsystems:
Portable localization and alerting equipment exploiting:
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for positioning, GNSS and IMU integration as well as multi constellation availability and RTK and PPP integration;
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for alerting, proper vibration or ring or light signal to solicit worker to clear the yard and move to the safe area;
Site manager dedicated laptop or tablet running:
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a Geographic Information System (GIS) functionality to draw the yard area, properly georeferenced, and show, with respect to that area, the real time position of workers estimated by the portable positioning equipment;
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a SW setup to manage the communication with the ATWS or the signalling system to make the train pass when, and only when, all the workers are verified to be in safe area or position;
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a SW for monitoring the capabilities of the portable equipment controlling telemetry, battery level, operational status etc.
Local wireless network to support communication between the site manager and the workers in the yard and the ATWS or other signalling systems.
The project was carried out in the frame of NAVISP Element 2, which is devoted to supporting competitiveness of European industries.