Railcar Transport Telematics System
AssigneeAccenture Global Services Limited
InventorsJohn M. Schullian, David St. Leger-Andrews, Christopher J. Weseloh
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A railcar asset management system proactively issues an alert or task when a pre-determined event occurs. The system may receive information regarding the location and status of a railcar from sensors on the railcar that may include a telematics sensing unit. A database in the railway telematics system stores the data regarding the railcar location and status information. The system determines whether an event has occurred and issues the proactive alerts and/or task. The system may communicate the proactive alert via e-mail, paging, PDAs or by cell phone and may provide interactive preconfigured web pages.
Claims20
A method for monitoring transport of materials in railcars, the method comprising:
- receiving a data transmission from a telematics sensor unit comprising data representative of a location, load, status and identity of a railcar;
- storing the data and a time stamp associated with reception of the data transmission;
- based on the data, determining that the railcar is located at a property of a customer;
- when the railcar is determined to be located, at the property of the customer, detecting, using a sensor, a time at which the customer taps the railcar to unload material from the railcar;
- accessing market pricing data;
- determining, using the accessed market pricing data, a market price for the material at the detected time;
- determining an amount of material unloaded from the railcar at the property of the customer and at the detected time;
- and
- defining a bill for the customer tapping the railcar to unload material at the detected time based on the determined market price for the material at the detected time and the determined amount of material unloaded from the railcar at the property of the customer and at the detected time.
A method for monitoring a railcar valve and hatch comprising:
- receiving data including a time and a location of a railcar and a condition of a seal of a valve or hatch on the railcar;
- storing the data in a railcar database;
- determining whether the condition of the seal of the valve or hatch on the railcar indicates that the seal of the valve or hatch on the railcar has been compromised;
- and
- in response to a determination that the seal of the valve or hatch on the railcar has been compromised:
- evaluating the location of the railcar at the time when the condition of the seal of the valve or hatch on the railcar indicates that the seal of the valve or hatch on the railcar has been compromised against a metric to determine an action to be taken related to the compromised seal of the valve or hatch on the railcar;
- and
- issuing a proactive alert.
A system comprising:
- at least one processor;
- and
- at least one computer-readable storage medium encoded with executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
- receiving a data transmission from a telematics sensor unit comprising data representative of a location, load, status and identity of a railcar;
- storing the data and a time stamp associated with reception of the data transmission;
- based on the data, determining that the railcar is located at a property of a customer;
- when the railcar is determined to be located at the property of the customer, detecting, using a sensor, a time at which the customer taps the railcar to unload material from the railcar;
- accessing market pricing data;
- determining, using the accessed market pricing data, a market price for the material at the detected time;
- determining an amount of material unloaded from the railcar at the property of the customer and at the detected time;
- and
- defining a bill for the customer tapping the railcar to unload material at the detected lime based on the determined market price for the material at the detected time and the determined amount of material unloaded from the railcar at the property of the customer and at the detected time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.