Trinity Industries, Inc. announced its plans to enter into a joint venture with Norfolk Southern, GATX Corporation, Genesee & Wyoming and Watco to create a coalition that is expected to accelerate rail modal transformation through the advancement of GPS technology and other telematics across the North American railcar fleet.
The new venture, called RailPulse, is committed to develop new standards and systems infrastructure to support the industry in meeting two key objectives. The first objective is to provide real-time information for enhanced safety through the consistent, reliable provision of key data on railcars across the entire North American fleet to shippers, railcar owners and railroads. The second objective is to reinforce rail’s competitive modal share position of freight transportation through increased real-time and sustainable visibility into status, location, and condition of rail equipment and the commodities being transported.
“While this coalition is in the early stages of development, we believe these efforts will be a key factor in improving the rail industry’s competitive position,” said Trinity CEO and President, Jean Savage. “We’ve been leveraging artificial intelligence to develop actionable analytics and infrastructure to support the addition of telematics on railcars for nearly two years, and testing the reliability of certain analytics on our own fleet of leased railcars. We believe partnering with other leading rail service providers will accelerate widespread adoption of these technologies across the North American railcar fleet and transform rail shipping in the future.”
Trinity Industries, headquartered in Dallas, TX, owns businesses that are providers of rail transportation products and services in North America. The TrinityRail platform provides railcar leasing and management services, as well as railcar manufacturing, maintenance and modifications. www.trin.net
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through its Department of Transportation (PennDOT), recently received a Fiscal Year 2020 Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the project. The Commonwealth, along with the rail partners that collectively own 20 percent of the North American railcar fleet, will provide an additional modest investment.
A full rollout of the RailPulse platform to North American rail shippers is expected by the end of 2022.
“In working with our customers, we have heard consistent feedback that they need greater rail network visibility in order to move more of their freight volume to the railroad,” said Gregg Mitchell, Trinity’s Chief Commercial Officer. “This new platform will empower industry participants, like Trinity, to deliver real-time insights to shippers and other railcar users for better fleet, inventory, and supply chain management. Ultimately, we expect these insights will provide improved satisfaction to shippers and their customers.”