In March 2010, Strukton Systems was commissioned by ProRail to migrate the ProPOSS system to POSSonline Release 5.1. This order follows ProRail’s strategic decision for an internationally used condition monitoring platform for rail objects.
Seven years ago, ProRail started to use Strukton’s ProPOSS and made this platform available to the process maintenance contractors in the Netherlands. In the subsequent years, Strukton Systems continued to develop new releases of POSS. An important advantage of the latest release, POSSOnline Release 5.1, is the amount of functionalities that this platform offers to monitor rail objects, including a handheld interface and SMS alerts.
ProRail opted for POSSonline because this new platform enables:
- maintenance contractors to perform condition-based maintenance and thus reduce cost
- monitoring the quality of rail objects
- third parties to be given (temporary) insight into the quality of rail objects, which is required for e.g. tendering for performance oriented maintenance contracts (PGO contracts)
POSSonline is used for monitoring rail objects including:
- points
- rail temperature
- level crossings (closure times, central sections)
- axle counters
- wheel/rail contact tensions and interference currents
- train detection
- axle short circuits
- points heating
The ProPOSS system currently monitors over 1,200 points in the Netherlands. This number will be increased within POSSonline after the migration. Strukton Systems will carry out the migration before August. This includes the training of ProRail staff members in May 2010, to which key users of the process maintenance contractors will also be invited.