Methods and systems for railcar content analysis and allocation management

A computer-implemented method for allocating a plurality of railcars in a rail yard based upon analysis of contents of the plurality of railcars via an electronic or communications network, the method comprising:

• generating, via a LiDAR sensor, images of the plurality of railcars;
• sending, via a network interface, the images of the plurality of railcars to an analysis unit;
• analyzing, via the analysis unit, the images of the plurality of railcars;
• based on the analysis, determining, via the analysis unit, a contents status for each railcar of the plurality of railcars;
• and
• transmitting, via a notification module, at least one notification to at least one of the plurality of mobile computing devices, each of the at least one notification including at least one of:
• one or more of the railcar contents status or one or more of the images of the plurality of railcars;
• wherein, in response to the transmitting of the at least one notification, the plurality of railcars are sorted to at least two different locations via at least one of the plurality of rail yard workers, each of the at least two different locations based on a respective one of the one or more of the railcar contents status.

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more programs configured to be executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, the one or more programs including instructions for:

• generating, via a LiDAR sensor, images of the plurality of railcars;
• sending, via a network interface, the images of the plurality of railcars to an analysis unit;
• analyzing, via the analysis unit, the images of the plurality of railcars;
• based on the analysis, determining, via the analysis unit, a contents status for each railcar of the plurality of railcars;
• and
• transmitting, via a notification module, at least one notification to at least one of the plurality of mobile computing devices, each of the at least one notification including at least one of:
• one or more of the railcar contents status or one or more of the images of the plurality of railcars;
• wherein, in response to the transmitting of the at least one notification, the plurality of railcars are sorted to at least two different locations via at least one of the plurality of rail yard workers, each of the at least two different locations based on a respective one of the one or more of the railcar contents status.