UK: Porterbrook will be the first UK rail customer to use a Transit Performance Optimisation Centre which Wabtec has opened in Derby as part of its expansion into asset analytics and condition monitoring to support predictive maintenance.
Wabtec already operates four Global Performance Optimisation Centres in the USA, Brazil and Kazakhstan monitoring more than 18 000 freight locomotive, marine engine and off-highway vehicle systems generating 10 million items of data per day, enabling failures to be predicted before they occur. It is now looking to expand the technology in the European passenger sector.
‘The combination of our inherent experience in global asset management, access to monitoring technology, analysis platforms and maintenance capabilities provide a winning combination for our customers’, said Garry Mowbray, Wabtec’s Vice-President of Regional Services on August 9.
Porterbrook is to use the TPOC’s services across 4 000 passenger rolling stock assets. Key projects include Class 170 DMU powerpack ‘power by the mile’, Class 158/9 and 168 engine swoil analysis and Class 172 powerpack analytics.
The leasing company’s Chief Operating Officer Ben Ackroyd said better analysis would provide ‘more dependable whole-life asset management capabilities to passenger and freight operators’, and ‘drive improved and more consistent performance and give us the opportunity to further leverage technology in our mission to deliver a safe, reliable and sustainable railway’.
