Bombardier Transportation has made health, safety and the environment (HSE) its highest priority. From its president to all sites across the globe, it is strengthening existing processes while developing innovative initiatives to reinforce the HSE Preventive Culture.
Common sense principles such as “expect train movement in any direction at any time” training, with established Blue Signal and Lock-Out/Tag-Out procedures, help keep the thousands of skilled tradespeople, site visitors and contractors at our operations and maintenance sites safe every day. Yet despite comprehensive training efforts, near misses and injuries still occur while on the job. To improve our safety performance, one of the areas we focused on was enhancing awareness of the location of rolling stock and of the people working on or around the equipment. This initiative led to the development of our YardSafe Technology Solution.
YardSafe uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to track worker and train locations through readers and user-friendly tagging stations. Train locations are tracked in real time while workers tag in and out of track and consist locations. The system prevents workers from tagging into trains that are not safely secured and trains that are scheduled for imminent moves. Large trackside screens allow supervisors and staff to see where all workers are relative to train consist and working locations. YardSafe also simplifies a supervisor’s ability to schedule consist moves, and communicate these moves to workers using color coded track status indicators.
Eliminating the human error of a misplaced tag on a location board, YardSafe updates people and equipment locations in real time on large screen monitors and networked mobile devices. That alone is significant, but we wanted to take it one step further. Our Bombardier Operations and Maintenance team at the NJ TRANSIT RiverLine site in Camden, New Jersey further integrated YardSafe with their automated mechanical track derails and blue flags. Now when the employee in charge uses YardSafe to set the tracks to “secure”, the mechanical derails and flags automatically rise into position.
For the safety of lone workers we’ve designed a small wearable device that wirelessly connects to YardSafe. This business card size device fits in the pocket of a high visibility safety vest, or can be worn around the neck or as an armband. The unit updates YardSafe with the employee’s location, as well as provides the lone working employee with textual, audible and vibration alerts when equipment is moving in his area. An easily accessible safety button on the device provides the worker with a quick way to notify all staff in case of an emergency.
Of course, while technology can never replace quality training and common sense, YardSafe enhances good safety practices and the commitment to continuous improvements in rail and transit.
Paul Carey is product manager-Technology Solutions at Bombardier Transportation.
