Nomad Digital and EMEF create joint venture to address the £5 billion market for Telemanagement on rail

Nomad Digital, the global leader for high-availability wireless solutions to the transportation sector, has created a joint venture with EMEF, the primary Portuguese operator in the railway maintenance sector, to meet the great rise in demand for “Telemanagement” solutions such as Condition Based Monitoring (CBM) and Energy Efficiency in the rail sector.

Telemanagement solutions provide rail operators with a real-time fleet-wide view of how the many on-board systems and isolated components are performing in the field. This enhanced and in-depth information allows operators to be more proactive on their operational and maintenance regimes.

The joint venture, to be named “Nomad Tech”, will further develop the combination of Nomad’s existing market-leading fleet connectivity and EMEF’s innovative Telemanagement solutions, to address the significant increase in global demand from the passenger trains, metro and freight markets for improvements in operational efficiency, vehicle availability and reduced life cycle costs (LCC).

Nomad Tech will not only provide remote connectivity to previously off-line digital and analogue legacy systems via Nomad’s high-availability communication solution, but also bring the know-how and tools to extract critical operational data, perform real-time analysis on-board, automatically issue alerts (such as signs of impending equipment failures) and feed the relevant information in real-time to the operator’s and maintenance depots.

Nomad Tech will merge CBM tools with a Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) strategy to help operators build new business-oriented maintenance processes – where maintenance is based on the condition of equipment and not performing remote maintenance at pre-determined intervals – or to improve existing maintenance management systems. Experience has shown that this combination can provide sizeable business improvements, by increasing reliability (reducing faults by more than 50%) and availability (by up to 20%), therefore reducing LCC.

Nomad Tech will also provide a suite of Energy Efficiency tools, including the accurate and continuous monitoring of energy consumption, such as drivers’ styles (based on brake, throttle and location settings) and fuel levels. This information is then incorporated into train driver training programmes, to implement eco-driving techniques. Using the real-time links, operators can also more accurately schedule refuelling and even remotely alert control centres of suspected fuel thefts in progress. Energy Efficiency can be improved further via Nomad Tech’s innovative and highly cost-effective power traction converter technology upgrades.

These solutions have been proven to deliver significant improvements in energy consumption, availability of trains during peak times, a reduction in new train purchases, a reduction in maintenance costs, less downtime from fewer faults or repairs, providing a very rapid business pay-back. Applying these results to the global market for rail vehicle operations and maintenance, indicates potential savings of over £5 billion a year that could be realised if rail operators fully embrace the benefits of Telemanagement solutions.

Some of the early adopters of Telemanagement solutions from EMEF and Nomad, already benefiting from such improvements, include the likes of Comboios de Portugal (CP), Northern Rail, Southeastern, Siemens, Alstom and Hitachi, along with a number of other large projects in the pipeline.

Having worked with EMEF since the launch of Nomad’s ‘NDMaintain’ solution in 2011, Nomad claims the partnership will strengthen the combination of their market leading capabilities, with hopes of driving an international standard for how rail vehicles are connected and remotely-monitored to directly benefit operations and maintenance practices.

Nomad’s CEO, Andrew Taylor, says: “We are seeing significant demands for condition based monitoring and energy efficiency solutions across our customers, driven by the industry’s continuing demand for improved efficiency and see this area as the industry’s next major evolution. This joint venture will benefit not only our customers, but the industry as a whole. The combination of Nomad’s market leading position, channel and technology expertise, together with EMEF’s in-depth technical know-how, hardware and software is highly complementary. Fundamentally, this should mean reduced costs for transportation companies, and better services and safety for passengers.”

EMEF’s CEO, Alberto Castanho Ribeiro, says: “Over the last decade EMEF has become a global pioneer in developing and applying the most modern maintenance strategies and condition based maintenance solutions, as well as eco-friendly solutions, which provide significant cost saving solutions for the railway market. Now it’s the time to spread the benefits of these technologies and solutions, through Nomad’s worldwide presence.”