权力ing Sustainable Rail: An Insider’s Look at the Evolution of Trip Optimizer™

By William Schoonmaker 和 目睹了Viegas

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Introduction: The Back Story

As Trip Optimizer achieves a new milestone in fuel optimization, saving railroads over one million gallons of fuel every five days, it’s a great opportunity to take a look back. It’s a story that shows the path to innovation is not linear 和 nothing great is ever achieved without the active involvement of customers.

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It all started in 2005. A research 和 development team was working on the concept of a battery-electric locomotive. To support this effort, a group of engineers was studying driving patterns of train operators to underst和 what it would take to charge 和 discharge a battery-operated locomotive. 这样做的时候, they discovered that there was an enormous amount of variation between one operator 和 the next. The recognition of this variation in driving patterns had two impacts: First, it made the regenerative braking models impossible to predict. 和 two: It demonstrated that there was significant inefficiency in how trains were being operated, resulting in increased fuel use 和 wear 和 tear. So, the technology team developed a train driving algorithm that followed all the right rules to drive the train consistently 和 sensibly. 和 when they finished, they realized that they had an immediate opportunity to use this new algorithm, integrated with automation, on regular diesel trains. That was the inspiration for Trip Optimizer.

产品进化

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Trip Optimizer began as a smart cruise-control system for trains that takes into account terrain, 火车化妆, speed restrictions 和 operating conditions to calculate an optimum speed profile 和 trip plan. Initially, Trip Optimizer controlled just one train element: throttle. Over time, this exp和ed to controlling dynamic brakes, 和 later, air brake advisement. Trip Optimizer was then integrated with distributed power to create an auto-independent distributed power feature that allows it to control longer trains with remotes running asynchronously. Because of this train h和ling feature, crews were able to control longer, heavier trains automatically.  This was followed by the introduction of more fuel savings features, including Smart HPT, which optimizes train performance by automatically reducing the horsepower per ton of the train without impacting velocity, 和节奏, which redistributes 和 optimizes the meet slack time on the network.  最近, Auto Air Brake Control was added, which increases the envelope during which Trip Optimizer operates, for even higher fuel savings.

Another interesting happening along the way was that trains got bigger. When the idea for Trip Optimizer was originally conceived, a big train was 10 or 12 thous和 tons. 今天, 32 thous和 tons is a big train. That is a huge increase in the size of trains that locomotives are pulling. 然而,, Trip Optimizer is constantly adapting to keep pace with this change by optimizing fuel savings 和 improving train h和ling.

Shaping the Solution: 客户 Feedback

Throughout the development of Trip Optimizer, our customers – industry leading freight railroads across the world – shaped the solution. Starting with the first Users’ Conference, where a mock-up of a Trip Optimizer screen was shared 和 we received lots of feedback, Trip Optimizer has been designed in collaboration with customer input. 事实上, customer input has either driven or inspired the development of Trip Optimizer 和 that input has been vital to its design 和 feature set. Very often it was the customers looking at how their trains worked 和 saying: if Trip Optimizer is going to work on my railroad, it has to be able to do the same thing that people do. So, we worked very closely with customers to ensure the solution met the needs of their railroads. 

Platform Architecture

Since its inception, Trip Optimizer was designed to control a locomotive in real time. 最初, the quickest way to do that was to co-locate the Trip Optimizer code with the control system code, so it had direct access to controlling throttle 和 braking. 和, while it was quick to market, we ended up with a platform that was intertwined with the locomotive control system code. So, while it was successful 和 it worked well, it became onerous to maintain.

As a result, over time, Trip Optimizer code was separated from the control system software. 今天, Trip Optimizer lives in its own high performance environment on two platform options: 1) GoLINC™, an industry proven network, communication 和 application management platform for the railroad industry, 与HPEAP. 和 2) Train Management Computer with CPU 1900. It uses an AAR-compliant message-based interface to communicate, enabling Trip Optimizer to integrate with any locomotive system that speaks that language. 除了, this platform architecture enables faster product releases to provide operators rapid enhancements 和 minor fixes for the best Trip Optimizer experience. In short: The independent platform architecture is a great benefit to our customers, who can now enjoy the full benefits of a common user interface 和 scalable fuel savings across their entire locomotive fleet.

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好处:

Trip Optimizer helps freight railroads in four fundamental ways:

• 节省燃料 & 减少排放: Driving the train optimally saves fuel. Trip Optimizer’s modular system architecture allows for step-by-step phased integration of enhanced fuel savings features. This allows customers the ability to add 和 incrementally scale fuel savings to best meet their operational 和 sustainability environmental goals, including a pathway to 30% fuel savings.
• Improves Train H和ling: Trip Optimizer allows customers to build the train they want 和 let physics 和 automation provide the train h和ling using algorithms. It is a tool for operators that makes train h和ling easy.
• Reduces 机车 Wear 和 Tear: With Trip Optimizer, in-train forces are reduced 和 that results in reduced wear 和 tear on the locomotives.
• Increases Situational Awareness: Through the provision of a rolling map, operators are able to gain advanced insight into upcoming track conditions.

关于作者:

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William Schoonmaker is Product Manager at 全球最大网赌正规平台. William has over 25 years of experience developing 和 implementing products for the control of freight trains including over 10 years working on Trip Optimizer.

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目睹了Viegas is a Product Manager at 全球最大网赌正规平台. Kiron has spent over 25 years in engineering 和 product management roles in the technology industry 和 is passionate about solving sustainability 和 automation challenges in freight rail operations.