Relatively old technology finally being applied to freight cars......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB03zeK2WIg
CMStPnPRelatively old technology finally being applied to freight cars...... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB03zeK2WIg
One statement made 'near real time' means not real time. Not being a shipper/consignee and no longer being employed by CSX I don't know how near to real time they are talking about.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDOne statement made 'near real time' means not real time. Not being a shipper/consignee and no longer being employed by CSX I don't know how near to real time they are talking about.
In regards to "near real time". Being in IT myself. You will never get real time anything with a mobile cellular communications link. And then what is transmitted has to be clear or wait for the next transmission. Transmission has to to authenticated and security checked probably as well. Also need a very high speed network (expensive) or upload it to a Cloud (fairly cheap) to move the data around the country. So that was my presumption when I read it. It probably updates on the clients website or portal within a hour or two of being transmitted..........would be my rough guess.
'Near-realtime' may mean only a few seconds of delay (as the requester queries the 'data warehouse' that the trackers are periodically 'updating', the appropriate data dereferencing and security access and probably encrypting are done, and the position report is composed and sent.
Obviously both the latency and granularity have to be better than AEI, which only updates at reader location; presumably it is better than what you'd get by feeding the tracking repository from AEI co-located with all those new defect-detector locations that will be mandated (or provided) in the wake of East Palestine. Note that some of the tracking algorithms used to calculate forward 'trends' in defect evolution could also be used for presumptive AEI-identified position 'identification' with higher perceived precision (note that this approach is passive on the car and requires no additional equipment not already found there...)
It will be interesting to see what the physical refresh interval for each GPS locator is, though I suspect that the number of transmitters communicating with a given cell is small so the critical bottleneck in datastreaming won't be particularly large, especially if the individual transmissions are encoded at transmission to be short. From the description, it was clear (to me at least) that the near-realtime refers to client access to the position stored in the repository. It will not be the client making a request, CSX pinging the GPS and the GPS responding through the cellular-radio network, and CSX then transmitting the result. (Although that could certainly be done if a client wanted closer-to-realtime confirmation of exact position and speed...)
CMStPnP Relatively old technology finally being applied to freight cars...... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB03zeK2WIg
Those have been pretty common my entire career. I don't know what makes them "new"? Perhaps the RR providing them vs. the shipper?
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
zugmannI don't know what makes them "new"? Perhaps the RR providing them vs. the shipper?
So now a customer can watch virtually their expected shipmen bounce back and forth past their facility instead of having to physically watch it go by.
I noticed it ws placed at the top of a Railbox Pool car. Is the GPS transponder permanently fixed to the car? If not, how does that work with interline moves? A pool type car, or a foriegn line car may not go back to CSX.
I suspect this is the first move to go beyond the AEI system. While we have them everywhere it seems on main routes, it's sometimes a pain trying to get the info from some readers.
Jeff
CMStPnPIn regards to "near real time". Being in IT myself. You will never get real time anything with a mobile cellular communications link. And then what is transmitted has to be clear or wait for the next transmission.
When I was working at the FAA, this came up with ADS-B that they'd say not to call it real-time for the same reason. By the time you actually get and process the last ADS-B transmission, the aircraft could be a half a mile from that reported position.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.