Railway safety: benefits of neural networks and new digital technologies.

The safety issues for passengers and personnel of transport companies are as acute as the issue of financing or technical support.

INFOCOM LTD

Today’s realities describe that ensuring a high quality level of services provided requires an internal digital transformation of the enterprise, the inmplementation of new systems which can identify possible problems at the stage of their occurrence (preventive measures).

For example, CCTV cameras – solution widely implemented and effectively used at railway stations as an element of a security system.

But the functionality of cameras can be much wider than archiving records and tracking in real time – if you apply new identification algorithms to the video stream and use the capabilities of neural networks.

Such algorithms are developed and implemented in the Driver Assistant application by INFOCOM LTD.

According to Wikipedia:
A neural network (also an artificial neural network, ANN) is a mathematical model, as well as its software or hardware implementation, built on the principle of the organization and functioning of biological neural networks – networks of nerve cells of a living organism.

Digital analysis of the video stream can identify abnormal operating modes of equipment and employees, can identify and control situations that affect the safety of passengers –  availability of personal protective equipment, for example.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the world is unlikely to be the same and safety rules, especially regarding to viral infections, will become a “rule” rather than a temporary inconvenience!

For example, CCTV cameras - solution widely implemented and effectively used at railway stations as an element of a security system

Similar algorithms for identifying people using neural networks, calculating the distance relative to locations, objects, allows you to analyze and signalize the following violations in railway transport:

  • localization of passengers in the danger zone, in the area of ​​the approaching train
  • identification of children near the danger zone, fast moving children
  • monitoring compliance with the rules of social distance, monitoring large groups of people for dispersing them
  • automatic counting the number of people (inside the building, on the platform, in the carriage), reporting of exceeding the norm or approaching a predetermined limit value of pesrons indoors to administration or security for action
  • remote analysis of the visitors’ body temperature at railway stations / trains, so that you can immediately protect passengers and provide assistance to people with poor health.

This way, digital technologies will help relieve tension from administration and security chiefs, and will help to prevent emergencies, and not to deal with their consequences.

So, according to the recommendations of the European Agency for Safety and Aviation (EASA) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), to ensure the smooth functioning of the station during quarantine, it is necessary to provide the following set of measures:

  • measuring the body temperature of passengers at the entrance to the station to prevent infected people from entering the station
  • thorough disinfection and cleaning of the premises
  • control of the presence of masks both at the station and on the train
  • social distancing control: no more than 2 people within a radius of 2 m.

More details about possibilities of controlling the necessary security measures for each set of issues using machine vision technologies and neural networks are described below.

Monitoring compliance with the internal safety rules of repair teams

When carrying out repair work on a railway track, digital analysis of video received from CCTV cameras can identify the quality of work performed, non-compliance with the safety rules of the repair team, namely:

  • analysis of the availability of overalls for railway employees:
    • presence of helmet, protective vest
    • wearing safety goggles, checking any other mandatory work safety clothing on employees / contractors
    • availability of the necessary tools for the declared work
    • control of the execution of typical operations (including the ability to count the operations performed)
  • control of the location of the repair car and keeping the distance of the repair car from the members of the repair team
  • control over the work of the repair team
  • the number of people in repair team and the types of their activities.

Identification is carried out according to predetermined rules, indicating the typical sizes, colors used on uniforms, the type and size of equipment – therefore, the trained system analyzes and informs the operator (dispatcher) about the identified inconsistencies instantly.

So the work manager will have additional information for timely decision-making.

Safety of passengers and control of the epidemiological situation

Due to the spread of coronavirus disease in the world and in accordance with temporary recommendations for anti-epidemic measures when organizing railway transportation during the quarantine period, it is necessary to carry out wet cleaning in the premises of railway stations using disinfectants at least four times a day and ventilate waiting rooms, foyers, zones service of passengers at least every 2 hours.

Robot TIMA, an autonomous robot for ensuring the safety of premises, will handle the routine disinfection task according to the specified schedule without interruptions.

Robot TIMA, an autonomous robot for ensuring the safety of premises, will handle the routine disinfection task according to the specified schedule without interruptions

The standard functionality of the TIMA robot includes:

  • independent building-up of a map of the premises and movement along the specified route
  • regular disinfection using a bactericidal air recirculator installed on it
  • sending to administration a report on the work performed
  • additional warning of passengers about non-compliance with the rules of social distance, about the absence of a mask in public place – after all, according to the rules for using stations, it is prohibited for passengers to be at railway stations, without using personal protective equipment, in particular respirators or protective masks that cover the nose and mouth.
  • in addition, if the robot receives information from the body temperature control system, additional notification of passengers about possible approach to a potentially dangerous location is provided.

Compliance with the rules of social distance

Compliance with the rules of social distance

Social distance is another aspect of control with which machine vision works flawlessly and has several benefits, such as:

  • automatic counting of people and building a map of their location
  • counting the number of people in the group – signaling the operator about a violation – the number of people in the group exceeds the permissible value
  • calculation of the distance between people and signaling about violation of the boundaries of the permissible distance
  • counting the total number of people in premises.

Compliance with the rules of social distance

The complex, in addition to video cameras and software, may include a searchlight for light signaling, which highlights areas with disturbances with a directed stream of light.

Machine recognition allows you to process a video stream and receive information in a convenient format, as well as receive any types of reports: graphs, quantities, averaged data for periods; make slices of information for selected periods, upload records of violations, time spent in the building.

Body temperature control – safety around passengers

Temperature screening for all employees of railway station and visitors to the station and train is currently a mandatory procedure.

People who are found to have abnormalities or have signs of respiratory disease during temperature screening are not allowed into the territory.

Body temperature control - safety around passengers

Massive temperature screening is a solution for non-contact temperature measurement, which is important during outbreaks of viral diseases, based on the DAHUA thermal imaging complex.

Advantages of non-contact temperature screening with the DAHUA complex:

  • accuracy of temperature measurements ±0,2°С
  • wide field of view and the ability to simultaneously track about 30 persons – optimal for controlling passenger traffic at entrance lobbies, at train stations, at airports, in the metro
  • face recognition, an intelligent algorithm for matching thermal images and images of the visible rang
  • accurate calibration by black body (blackbody)
  • compact size and easy installation.

Passenger safety in the compartment – air recirculator

UV-C radiation is an air disinfectant that has been used for over 40 years to reduce the risk of infection and the spread of disease.

The use of ultraviolet light is detrimental to viruses and bacteria, but being in a protective casing, the ultraviolet lamp still kills pathogenic bacteria, but does not harm the surrounding organisms.

Flowing bactericidal UV, stationary recirculators Timed

Flowing bactericidal UV, stationary recirculators Timed, developed by INFOCOM LTD, are designed for decontamination (disinfection) of indoor air, especially when the threshold of viral diseases increases:

  • living premises
  • industrial premises
  • warehouses
  • crowded places (halls, offices, theaters, cinemas, train stations)
  • food establishments, etc.

The use of bactericidal recirculators in the compartment, in the carriage will make it possible to protect passengers, reduce the risk of human infection with viral infections by airborne droplets in crowded places.

Disinfection occurs due to the interaction of air masses with ultraviolet radiation from a germicidal lamp located inside the body.

Forced air movement through the recirculator is carried out using built-in fans.

The device itself is a compact flow chamber 225x90x360 mm in size with built-in UV lamps, ventilation, dust filters.

The recirculator can work in the presence of people. Such a recirculator can be either stationary (connected to a 220 V network) or mobile (powered from 12 V): placed in cars, trains, buses – any vehicles, or be connected to the Robot TIMA robot disinfector.

Robot TIMA

Short company description:

INFOCOM LTD is an innovative engineering company that has been working with modern solutions in the field of automation, neural networks and computer vision for over 25 years.

The company is a developer of unmanned vehicle control technology, including a project for an unmanned transport train, and also introduced the TIMA autonomous robot on the market in 2019 (www.robottima.com).

Our solutions are versatile and innovative!

INFOCOM LTD
Installation of analytical systems
sales@ia.ua
www.ia.ua
+38 061 213 78 55
+38 067 616 87 58
+38 050 341 71 09

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