Systems and methods with enhanced predictive railroad crossing traffic notification and railroad worker safety notification
OwnerThomas N. Hillearyinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system that predictively estimates a time of arrival of a locomotive at public or private railroad crossings. Remote processor-based devices receive the predictively estimated time of arrival of the locomotive for the identified public or private railroad crossings to improve safety on the roadway at each of the plurality of railroad crossings. The system also provides a predictively estimated time of arrival of a locomotive at a railroad worker location that does not coincide with a public or private railroad crossing.
Claims40
A predictive railroad notification system operable with respect to a plurality of operating trains, the system comprising:
- a centralized processor based-device operable to:
- iteratively receive at a predetermined interval real-time operating data for each of the plurality of operating trains, wherein the received real-time operating data for each one of the plurality of trains includes locomotive location data and velocity data;
- identify one or more public or private railroad crossings that each locomotive of the plurality of operating trains will approach;
- based on the received locomotive location data, determine a distance between each locomotive and each of the one or more identified public or private railroad crossings;
- and
- based on the determined distances and the locomotive velocity data, predictively estimate a time of arrival of each locomotive at each of the one or more identified public or private railroad crossings;
- and
- a plurality of processor-based devices remotely located from the centralized processor based device and each receiving the predictively estimated time of arrival of each locomotive for the one or more identified public or private railroad crossings, thereby facilitating specific decisions and actions to be taken in advance of the respective predictively estimated time of arrival of each locomotive at the one or more identified public or private railroad crossings.
A predictive system operable with respect to a plurality of operating trains to proactively improve safety at a railroad worker location, the system comprising:
- a centralized processor based-device operable to:
- iteratively receive at a predetermined interval real-time operating data for each of the plurality of operating trains, wherein the received real-time operating data for each one of the plurality of trains includes locomotive location data and velocity data;
- accept location data for at least one work zone for a railroad worker crew;
- based on the received locomotive location data and accepted location data, determine a distance between at least one of the locomotives and the at least one work zone;
- and
- based on the determined distance and the locomotive velocity data, predictively estimate a time of arrival of the locomotive at the at least one work zone without requiring physical train detection proximate the work zone;
- and
- at least one processor-based railroad worker device remotely located from the centralized processor based device and receiving the predictively estimated time of arrival of the locomotive at the at least one work zone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.