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How AI Is Transforming the Rail Industry
- This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine Issue 3 2021.
Today’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered systems and applications boost productivity and safety across transportation sectors, including the railway.
The rail industry has long needed modernisation, particularly in autonomous operation, which is made possible through AI. In order to compete with the transition to autonomous vehicles in road transportation of both cargo and passengers, the rail industry needs to integrate AI into its modernisation to benefit areas of operation.
Contributing Trends and Factors
Legacy onboard and wayside systems have worked for decades and continue to do so. However, the nature of competition and the need for growth makes AI as attractive to the railways as every other industry. Organisations adopting AI can expect an uptick in revenue, including AI-driven revenue increases, and reduced costs. AI stands to give the railways an aggressive bottom-line boost. However, other complementary trends and factors also make AI adoption well-suited to the railways.
Potential AI Applications for Rail
AI is a new, rapidly evolving technology and its prevalence and influence in the rail industry are growing. The following are examples of AI applications to expect within this market.
