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At an event in June, IBM officials touted the work they were doing with Amtrak.
In particular, IBM and Amtrak officials spoke about how the railroad was using IBM’s Maximo asset management software to help monitor and control everything from tracks, electric substations and relays along Amtrak’s busy Northeast corridor.
Now IBM is growing the reach of its Maximo software among rail transportation agencies. The vendor on Oct. 7 announced that the Long Island Rail Road in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit agency and the Metro organization in Washington are all turning to Maximo technology to manage everything from trains and buses to stations to purchasing and inventory systems.
Such projects are part of IBM’s larger Smarter Planet initiative, which is aimed at putting greater intelligence into the world’s infrastructures to make them safer and more cost- and energy-efficient.
The Long Island Rail Road will use Maximo software as part of a project to improve operations and increase passenger safety. The software will be used to manage and maintain about 1,180 rail cars and locomotives, as well as their components-such as wheels, lighting and doors-according to IBM.
In addition, the LLIR-which transports 300,000 passengers a day over more than 700 miles of track-will use the software to integrate with onboard computer systems to find problems, such as improper brake pressure, and issue work orders to fix them.
Maximo also improves business operations by integrating the work orders and materials management within the railroad’s corporate asset management system.
IBM’s software also will touch upon the maintenance and management of such assets as computers, stations such as Penn and the Atlantic Avenue Terminal, and LIRR’s Geographic Information System.
The project is expected to be completed in 2012.
In San Francisco, BART employees will use IBM software to manage the purchasing, inventory and maintenance systems that support everything from trains and stations to equipment and operations. The move is part of a larger modernization project.
Officials with BART, which transports more than 346,000 passengers a day, will use Maximo software to monitor and analyze assets and schedule maintenance before parts or systems fail. They’ll also use it to better manage parts inventory, and prepare for and test new rail cars.
“BART manages the nation’s fifth busiest transit system responsible for transporting hundreds of thousands of business and leisure travelers every day,” Ken Donnelly, worldwide Maximo industry lead for IBM, said in a statement. “Even as BART grows and extends its service area, the software manages and integrates equipment in line with efficient business processes and operations.”
Officials with Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are using the IBM software to monitor and manage its buses, trains and related equipment so they will know when something needs to be fixed or replaced.
WMATA manages 106 miles of tracks, 1,144 rail cars, 1,500 buses, and more than 12,000 bus stops and train stations.
The Maximo products help officials manage these assets, as well as about 180,000 work orders a month.