Due to the typical practice of freight trains spending idle time in depots and sidings, they are often situated in 'blind spots' that are not visible on the network. The TRACO prototype enables tracking containers anywhere, in real time.
Daniel Lee-Bursnall, CEO and Founding Partner of Incremental said: “The modal shift of transporting freight from road to rail is something we are proud to support as it contributes towards a more sustainable future. ‘TRACO’ will give all parties in the supply chain access to essential and credible location data at any given time. This will reduce paper-based systems and provide the tools to better plan, monitor and deliver goods to customers around the UK.”
Utilizing Nomad’s robust road and rail connectivity solutions, TRACO offers high availability and high-frequency GNSS positioning with equipment installed on rail and road freight vehicles respectively.
Mike Butler, Head of Innovation at Nomad Digital adds: “To have various levels of equipment integrated into the TRACO overall solution right from low cost to rail grade all reporting into the same platform is one of the elements that made this project unique and provided extremely valuable data to help optimize freight distribution. At a time when the transport industry is heavily demanding innovation to find more efficient ways of working, a fully transparent freight tracking solution that utilizes robust connectivity can drive everyone towards new smarter ways of working together.”
Within the freight depots, NimbeLink GNSS devices were provided by AirGain to track the transition of freight containers from road to rail, providing insights into the potential dwell times and bottlenecks. These devices complemented the vehicle devices by preventing the containers from disappearing once they were removed from the respective road and rail vehicles.
