USA: Kansas City Southern has awarded planning and scheduling tool specialist Biarri Rail a contract to supply its Boss MP Loco cloud-based software to improve locomotive utilisation.
‘We engaged Biarri Rail to perform a proof-of-concept using Boss MP Loco and this clearly demonstrated that we could use the software package to identify potential fleet efficiencies and help make strategic decisions on the deployment and positioning of our locomotive fleet’, said Mike Walczak, KCS Vice-President Strategic Operational Planning.
‘For example, we were able to run multiple scenarios examining how many of our fleet could be equipped for Positive Train Control based on how and where we may choose to assign power on our cross-border trains that operate in both the USA and Mexico. Our current locomotive planning tools do not provide optimisation or “what if” capabilities to deliver the most efficient plan. The Biarri Rail software has an intuitive user interface and powerful optimisation algorithms, which will provide a step change in our planning capability.’
