US-12623702-B2 - System and method for railroad personnel safety assurance

US12623702B2US 12623702 B2US12623702 B2US 12623702B2US-12623702-B2

Abstract

A system for enhancing personnel safety on a railroad track is presented. The system can receive data from sensors and/or a PTC system to determine positions of clients/worker and/or vehicles, and further utilize such data to determine if a vehicle is within a certain proximity of the client/worker location. The system can further generate geofences around clients/vehicles to and determine when such geofences intersect one another. Additionally, the present disclosure can assign severity levels and generate alerts with the assigned severity levels, and such severity levels can indicate how close a vehicle is to a particular location. It is an object of the invention to provide a system for generating alerts to notify personnel when they much retreat to a place of safety.

Inventors

Eric Peter Olsen
Jacob Bunkley
Dickson Waudo
William Stewart
Raven Wylie
Shanmugasundaram Rajasubramanian
Nithin Paul Mathew
Marutha Pandian Jagadesan
Michael Howard
David Himmelstein
Aamir Ahmad Halim
Wayne Morgan
Amit Kumar Dash

Assignees

BNSF RAILWAY COMPANY

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20240208

Claims (20)

1 . An establishment system configured to generate a safety plan having one or more indications and identify locations of one or more clients or geofences around one or more clients, comprising: a memory; and a computer processor operably coupled to the memory and configured to: receive work data, including a location proximate a railroad track where work is to be performed, and generate a safety plan having one or more indications; determine positions of one or more railroad constituents; and generate a geofence using the positions of the one or more railroad constituents, wherein the geofence is generated by the geofencing module to have a size based on a type of the railroad constituents.
2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety plan includes a worker name, a date, a work location, a sighting distance, a speed indication, and a method of warning a worker of an oncoming train.
3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the work data includes division data related to a particular division, such as topography, track curvature, grade, climate, weather, temperature, environmental data, tie composition, rail type, ballast type, or ballast age.
4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the establishment system transmits the safety plan to a railroad system.
5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety plan includes a set of predetermined alerts or notifications associated with the safety plan.
6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the safety plan includes an indication that an alert should be generated and transmitted when proximity thresholds are satisfied.
7 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the safety plan includes an indication that an alert should be generated and transmitted when certain geofence intersections occur.
8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the indications can be transmitted to a collision avoidance system that uses the indications to generate or transmit alerts with a severity level.
9 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the severity level is based on the distance from the location.
10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to associate the position data with received track data to determine a position relative to a railroad track.
11 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to establish proximity thresholds around a location.
12 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to generate geofences of predetermined sizes depending on the railroad constituent associated with the geofence.
13 . A coordination system configured to forecast a client or vehicle position, detect a proximity of one railroad constituent to another, and detect an interference between railroad constituents, comprising: a memory; and a computer processor operably coupled to the memory and configured to: use position data to forecast a position of a vehicle on a railroad track; determine when one or more railroad constituents are within a particular proximity of one another; and detect when a first geofence intersects with a second geofence, wherein sizes of the first and second geofences are generated based on a type of the railroad constituents.
14 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to receive position data and track data to forecast where a vehicle can be at a particular time.
15 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to use speed limits, closures, train schedules, maintenance projects, maintenance schedules, to forecast future railroad constituent positions or locations.
16 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to determine a track distance between railroad constituents.
17 . The system of claim 16 , wherein the track distance is used to determine whether a proximity threshold is satisfied.
18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein the proximity threshold is satisfied when the track distance falls below a particular proximity threshold distance.
19 . The system of claim 13 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to use sensor data to detect interference or potential interference between railroad constituents or proximity threshold satisfaction.
20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the sensors include strain gauges, speedometers, GPS receivers, cameras, LiDAR, RADAR, or radios.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS The present application is a Continuation Application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/403,014, filed Aug. 16, 2021, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entireties for all purposes. TECHNICAL FIELD The present disclosure relates generally to enhancing safety of personnel working on railroad tracks, especially with respect to preventing collision of rail vehicles with personnel. BACKGROUND Rail transport systems traverse entire continents to enable the transport and delivery of passengers and goods throughout the world. A quintessential component of railroad infrastructure is the track—laid over a myriad of geographies and terrains, railroad tracks are designed to withstand the worst of the elements and facilitate disbursement of locomotives throughout the railroad system. Because of this constant exposure of the tracks to hazardous conditions, railroad companies must be vigilant in maintaining track integrity; if a section of track is compromised and the damage or obstruction is not quickly addressed, the consequences can be catastrophic. There are millions of components in any given railroad infrastructure, and track integrity must be maintained at all times to ensure the safe travel of freight cars on the tracks. Some maintenance work can be performed by single works, while other maintenance work can require entire crews. Due to the sheer size of railroad infrastructure and general cost constraints, optimizing personnel utilization is extremely important, and oftentimes workers embark on maintenance projects alone. Working on active railroad tracks can be a dangerous undertaking, whether in a crew or working alone. Because of the need to meet deadlines, deliver freight, etc., many track requiring maintenance remain active while particular work is being performed. As such, a train may come blasting down the rails directly where personnel are tending to the track—one mistake on the part of the worker can be fatal. While workers can sometimes hear and/or see a train coming with enough notice to vacate the track, there are all too many times when a second's misjudgment leads to a death on the railroad. Such problem is compounded by weather impeding visibility and hearing, such as snowstorms, rainstorms, etc., as well as by solo-projects, where workers cannot rely on one another to warn of impending trains. Further, while oncoming trains will also attempt to sound a horn when the conductor/engineer sees a crew on the horizon, this is not always effective, whether due to human error or other factors like those discussed above. When workers do become aware of an approaching train, they retreat to a place of safety somewhere proximate the track. This can be an issue in and of itself—if a worker is on a bridge, the worker may have to traverse a significant length of the bridge to arrive at a safe location. With these dangers in mind, currently, workers submit a plan regarding where they will be working, a date and time of the work to be performed, and an estimated sighting distance (e.g. the visibility down a track from that particular work location, e.g., such that a train can be seen) to make sure personnel have at least a general distance and/or reaction time in mind. However, this is essentially an exercise in futility—accurately estimating a sighting distance is nigh impossible when considering all of the relevant factors, including geography, track curvature, elevation, climate, etc. Additionally, the sighting distance estimation fails to address the problem of adequately notifying track personnel of oncoming trains. As an additionally caveat, the need to keep trains moving to satisfy schedules and delivery timelines often means that personnel need to continue their work for as long as possible, even with a train inbound, to minimize delays. Such efficiency concerns must be balanced with safety to ensure a safe and productive work environment. SUMMARY The present disclosure achieves technical advantages as a system and method for enhancing personnel safety that can generate alerts of varying severity levels accounting for the imminence of an oncoming rail vehicle. The system can account for the variabilities of vehicle distance, speed, and time of approach when assigning severity levels to alerts. The system can receive data that can be indicative of client and/or vehicle position, and can further utilize such data to forecast vehicle locations and proximity threshold satisfaction times, such as to enable the generation of alerts to clients that are not actively connected to a network. The system can further utilize one or more geofences around a client, a vehicle, or both to facilitate severity level assignment and alert generation. The present disclosure solves the technological problem of providing a personnel alert system configured to account for vehicle location in prioritizing generated alerts. The present disclosure can determine a sigh