Christian Fritz, Vice President for Customer Service & Project Management of the Diagnostic and Monitoring Technologies for Infrastructure Department at voestalpine Signaling Austria GmbH, writes that the development of intelligent switch machines is fundamental in the digital transformation of rail networks.
The increasing density of train traffic is placing high demands on reliability, efficiency and availability. In addition, the periods available for maintenance are becoming extremely tight. Monitoring systems have been already used for years now for the preventive detection of issues and in the field of condition-based maintenance. Within the scope of progressing digitalisation, the use of intelligent field elements opens innovative application options for train operators and infrastructure companies. voestalpine Signaling has, therefore, set itself the goal of making switch machines intelligent. What makes a switch machine smart?