PITTSBURGH – Wabtec’s Trip Optimizer has reached a new milestone: Railroads have racked up more than a billion miles using the locomotive smart cruise control system that was introduced in 2009.
“This billion-mile accomplishment is a tribute to our customers and our team of innovators,” Nalin Jain, president of Wabtec Digital Intelligence, said in a statement yesterday. “Trip Optimizer has become an integral locomotive operating system and an industry standard for railroads to efficiently manage the performance of their trains. It is building upon the rail industry’s leadership as the most efficient mode of transporting goods by enabling railroads to significantly cut down on unnecessary fuel consumption, minimize emissions, and optimize their travel routes.”
Trip Optimizer considers terrain, train make-up, speed restrictions, and operating conditions to calculate what Wabtec calls an optimum speed profile. The software automatically controls locomotive throttle and dynamic brakes to reduce fuel burn and provide efficient train handling.
To date, 12,000 locomotives worldwide that use Trip Optimizer saved approximately 752 million gallons of diesel, enough fuel to generate nearly 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity or power almost 900,000 homes for a year, Wabtec says. Trip Optimizer also reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 7.7 million tons, the equivalent of removing emissions from approximately 1.7 million cars for a year.
“Trip Optimizer is delivering meaningful returns for our customers,” Jain said. “The system is EPA certified to reduce emissions by 10% by reducing fuel consumption enabling railroads to shrink their carbon footprint and reduce operating expenses. We are dedicated to advancing sustainable solutions, and pioneering innovations that leave a lasting, positive impact both operationally and environmentally for our customers.”
Wabtec continues to update Trip Optimizer based on feedback from railroads, operational insights, and technological advances. Independent Control of LOCOTROL Distributed Power, Trip Optimizer SmartHPT, and Air Brake Control are part of Wabtec’s offerings for greater energy-management opportunities.
Trip Optimizer is used by 23 customers on five continents, including all North American Class I railroads and rail operators in Brazil and Australia.
It’s totally depressing to use.
Don’t see anywhere giving the number of drawbars and knuckles that have been pulled and or broken. Have heard of coal trains Wyo. to Texas breaking up to 17 knuckles using the system. Like so many stories given by the manuf. they don’t include such things as that,
It would go into dynamic braking using some small amount of fuel to slow my train below the speed limit going downhill where going faster used no fuel.
So, 10% reduction in emissions. But exactly how much FUEL is being saved? Seems like if that was a catchy, impressive number, they’d be throwing that one at us. 750 million gallons in 14 years, so 54 million per year, thereabout, worldwide. I see in 2019 US Class 1’s burned 3.4 billion gallons. I’m not good with the math, is that about 2%? But that’s not the whole story. How much fuel was being saved merely by adjusting horsepower per ton so that most non-priority trains were relatively slow moving land barges running many times with one unit in notch 8 all day making about 30mph at best, if not going down hill.
I have no doubt that TO has done as is advertised, and as such, it is a good thing. But, our dispatchers noticed the performance lag and dubbed it “Trip Lobotomizer”.
What’s not said is: 1. How many thousands of overtime hours are incurred because trains are taking longer to get over the road. 2. How many trains have to be recrewed because crews run out of hours. 3. It makes good engineers average and mediocre engineers average.
When you start slowing down 15 miles ahead of a slow order its not hard to save fuel.