AI on Track – Revolutionizing Rail Freight and Solving the Industry’s Toughest Challenges with ZEDEDA

New federal railway regulations have introduced the need for enhanced detection capabilities and more frequent inspections along railroad tracks. For large railway operators, this presents significant challenges, especially when managing thousands of miles of tracks in remote and harsh environments. ZEDEDA, through its unified edge platform, is helping one of the largest American railroad operators address these challenges. The operator, which manages 8,000 locomotives and transports over 500 million tons of freight annually, is required to increase the number of hotbox detectors from 4,000 to 20,000. These detectors monitor the temperature of train wheels to prevent derailments, a leading cause of accidents. The new regulations also mandate the use of advanced technologies like computer vision and AI inference at the edge to detect additional issues beyond just heat.

The scale of this deployment is a major technical challenge. Managing 20,000 edge devices in remote, often unsecured locations requires robust solutions for connectivity, security, and operational efficiency. ZEDEDA’s platform is designed to handle such scale, offering zero-touch deployment and management of edge devices. The platform ensures that devices are secure, even in physically vulnerable locations, by implementing measures like encryption, read-only file systems, and intrusion detection. Connectivity is another hurdle, as these devices must operate with various types of network connections, including 2G, 4G, satellite, and microwave. ZEDEDA’s platform simplifies this by automatically configuring devices based on available connectivity, ensuring seamless operation across diverse environments.

In addition to addressing current regulatory requirements, ZEDEDA’s platform provides flexibility for future advancements. The platform allows for the deployment of new applications and updates over time, enabling the railroad operator to adapt to evolving technologies and regulations. For example, future use cases include computer vision for wheel defect monitoring, railroad crossing safety, and advanced traffic control. By containerizing legacy systems and enabling real-time AI inference at the edge, ZEDEDA is helping the railroad industry modernize its operations, improve safety, and meet regulatory demands efficiently.