The railroad industry is one of the most complex industries when it comes to digitization challenges and implementing automation, which is necessary for new levels of effectiveness and efficiency in rail operations. With each new digital technology added to the rail environment, new levels of data processing requirements are raised.
Data collection and storage is not a new concept in rail, and has been commonplace in the industry for quite some time. However, the use of real-time data for rail operations, planning and maintenance has taken a front and center position, to become an essential component of everyday modern rail operations. How the rail industry is able to analyse the available data and make decisions effectively, lies at the heart of enabling new technology innovation and continuous industry improvements.
The challenges of using data effectively in the rail industry
Data, particularly big data, holds five characteristics referred to as the ‘five V’s’. Each of this characteristics help demonstrate the challenging scenarios and importance of integrating data, and using it effectively, within the railway sector
Variety: The railway environment is an eclectic mix of technologies, systems, COTS products and vendors.
Volume: There is a sheer volume of data, and alerts, produced during live operations, possess challenges to how it is processed and managed.
Velocity: The large volume of data needs to be processed very quickly in order to be considered real-time and provide real value.
Veracity: Due to the safety critical nature of railway operations, it is essential to ensure the decisions made from data are reliable.
Value: The data produced in railway operations hold high value in maintaining the necessary 100% availability of operations, such as detecting live threats and predictive maintenance issues.
Enabling data in rail. How Edge Computing can be the answer to many of the challenges for rail
Edge processing (or edge computing) is a computing paradigm that allows data to be processed as close to the data source as possible. The early goal of edge computing was to reduce the bandwidth costs associated with moving raw data long distances from where it was created to a data center. In the context of the Rail industry, this means critical, data driven decisions are processed on the train itself in real-time, mitigating the effects of unpredictable network disruptions, as well as bandwidth and latency issues when transmitting data across long routes to remote data centers.
You could downsample the data, to limit the amount of data being sent from systems to the remote locations. But, then you’d risk missing important information and events. In rail, any incident that poses a risk to safety must be investigated. Therefore, processing data in real time on the train is essential for the rapid detection and efficient management of those critical issues that require immediate attention. This is a critical concept for rail cyber security and highlights the importance of proactive threat detection technologies that will not just identify a potential breach as early as possible, but also to take action to mitigate the threat.
How can RazorSecure help?
To keep rail operations running safely and efficiently, real-time data processing and proactive cybersecurity aren’t just advantages — they’re necessities. Edge-based processing empowers operators to detect and mitigate threats instantly, ensuring passenger safety, operational continuity, and regulatory compliance.
Ready to unlock the full potential of real-time rail cybersecurity?
Contact us below to learn how our solutions can protect your rail systems from evolving threats.
