Big data and artificial intelligence to improve the operation and maintenance of high-speed rail

Indra has started to roll out a new big data and machine learning module in its propietary control solutions, Mova Traffic, which has already demonstrated during the preliminary tests its capacity to improve the operation and maintenance of high-speed rail.

The work is part of the Transforming Transport project, lead by Indra, which is one of the largest projects funded by the H2020 program of the EU and aims to improve mobility in Europe through the use of big data.

Indra is leading the smart rail maintenance pilot project in Spain, in the high-speed section between Cordoba and Malaga, in collaboration with Adif, Ferrovial Agroman, Thales and CI3. The pilot project has made progress in gathering data associated with the train maintenance and operation activities, topology and weather conditions.

Thanks to the integration, analysis and modeling of data, with the use of big data and artificial intelligence, the tool can be used to predict the degradation of each element of the infrastructure (track, interlocks, switches, etc.), the fault probability and their severity. The operator can access all of this information about the assets, maintenance and traffic, as well as how to generate reports and charts. This new information is used in decision-making processes, improving the planning of maintenance activities, facilitating how predictive maintenance is carried out, reducing costs and the degradation of the infrastructure.

The team is currently working to incorporate all of this information with the rail operation information through DaVinci, the rail management platform and Indra’s TMS system, with the aim of also optimizing the use of the rail infrastructure. The purpose is to have a real-time system that uses the results of the predictive model developed, together with the data of traffic and the planned schedule of trains.