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SAFETY
Robert Hanczor, founder and CEO at American-based Piper Networks, explains more about the innovative solutions the company has developed to improve railway operations, ahead of exhibiting at Railtex
Bringing ‘the future of railway safety’ to the UK
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iper Networks is on a journey to deliver its safety and control systems for transit railroad across the globe. The innovative IT solutions provider and systems integrator, which has built a solid platform in America, is now bringing its solutions to the UK, and will be exhibiting at Railtex in Birmingham next month. “Our experience working shoulder to shoulder with public agencies and rail operators in America to deploy innovative solutions in the most challenging environments has given us a thorough understanding of some of the major pain points that transit agencies and freights are facing today,” said Robert Hanczor, founder and CEO of Piper Networks. “We’ve designed our technology and platform to improve operations by providing highly accurate data of where trains and assets are in real-time, improving track worker safety, creating interoperability/compatibility with legacy
equipment, and improving the speed of delivery for maintenance and signalling projects.” Piper has an existing suite of real-time location systems (RTLS) solutions that utilise various technologies, including Ultra Wideband (UWB), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), High Definition (HD) cameras and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) – along with a suite of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods for extracting analytical data trends. “Our single platform is not only designed to communicate seamlessly with existing systems, but they can also be interoperable with legacy equipment,” added Robert. “Our solutions improve efficiencies and safety, which in the UK could be particularly useful for Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) implementations, as well as mid-tier transportation agencies, the smaller metropolitan transit authorities which are looking for Automatic Train Protection (ATP) functionality that doesn’t really require CBTC.
“When we visit Railtex we want to talk about those features and about how we deliver on many Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) functional requirements for ATP, and also how the new generation technologies we’ve developed make it even easier for agencies to deploy technologies in a train-centric way, rather than going through the costs of expensive wayside build-outs.” Piper Networks was founded in 2011 and was involved with location-based technologies, particularly around BLE, with its first foray into transportation when the New York Subway System was looking for a way to deliver a public information display system. It now has Bluetooth radios on every train in the B-Division of the subway system. These advertise their location with other encrypted onboard information which is picked up by a network of receivers that Piper installed on the platforms and elsewhere on the system.
April 2023
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