Faulty Detector Identification

Identification of Faulty Railroad Wayside WILD and THD Detectors

Abstract
Tiger Analytics developed a method to identify faulty railroad wayside detectors which incorrectly report defects in otherwise well-functioning railcar equipment. This identification was made possible by analyzing historical failure/defect rates reported by the detectors after adjusting for seasonality in traffic and weather patterns as well as car usage. Early identification of faulty detectors led to an estimated savings in unnecessary repair cost of over $2 million/year. A high WILD or THD reading leads to a repair at the expense of the railcar owner. Thus the InteRRIS system is thought to improve proactive maintenance by reducing the reliance on traditional time and mileage based maintenance.

Business Objectives
The objective was to develop an integrated Analytics system to identify faulty detectors that are producing high number of erroneous alerts. The identification was needed in a timely fashion to enable the corrective actions before unnecessary repair expenditures were incurred.

Client
One of the largest providers of railcars to the North American rail industry.

Challenges Background
Railroad industry monitors the railcar equipement performance on a daily basis through a centralized system called Integrated Railroad Remote Information System (InteRRIS). There are hundreds of detectors distributed across Northern America that monitor wheel impact load (WILD) and truck hunting (THD). The WILD and THD reading are reported to various American Association of Railroad (AAR) repair locations that make corrective repairs based on pre-determined set of rules. There were three main challenges in this project. First, the wayside detectors produce massive amount of data (of the order of 1 GB) per day, and we needed at least three years of historical data to analyze. Second, the detector characteristics varied over time and across detectors due to seasonal variation in traffic and weather pattern as well as car usage. These variations made it difficult to develop a benchmark for comparing detector performances against each other. Third, the system needed to be integrated with the existing infrastructure used by the client and it needed to be flexible to accommodate various what-if analyses.

Copyright 2012, Tiger Analytics LLC. All rights reserved

Faulty Detector Identification

Solution
We developed a solution that addresses the challenges outlined above. First, we created indatabase processing of raw data in the Enterprise Data Warehouse to create meaningful summarized information. This reduced the data size by more than 100-fold and still preserved all the information that was needed to develop analytical methods. Second, to handle detectors spread across the country with different weather and traffic conditions, we used statistical methods as well as domain knowledge to identify groups of detectors that have behaved similarly on the past data. Separate benchmark was developed for each group of detectors, and then each detector was scored against its group benchmark to detect any outliers. This score is a measure of the confidence level that a detector is faulty. Third, we used SAS Business Intelligence tools to develop custom reports to provide an easy snapshot of the health of all detectors. The reports provide drill-down capabilities. We also provide a UI to capture user inputs to conduct what-if analysis and detailed diagnosis for any detector. Our solution sends weekly email notification whenever a faulty detector is identified and provides a web-based reporting dashboard.

Success Story
Within a month of deploying our solution, we were able to identify a detector that was giving abnormally high number of alerts. When an engineer was sent to the detector site, it was found that due to flooding near the detector, it was producing erroneous alerts during winter time. The client decided to re-calibrate the detector. This is expected to save them over half a million dollars of unnecessary repair expenses each year.

Value Creation
We were able to deliver this solution within a short period of only 4 months at a low cost to our client. It is expected that the customer will save at least $2 Million per year in avoidable repair expenses. We presented our solution to various railroad executives of the North American Railroad system, and it was well appreciated not only for its sound methodology but also for its ease of use.

About Tiger Analytics

We are a boutique consulting firm that provides services to enable organizations create value using Advanced Analytics. We strive to create business value through applying innovative analytical approaches to business problems.We specialize in Railroads, Forecasting, Pricing, Retail Supply Chain Optimization, and Social and E-Commerce Analytics. For more information visit www. TigerAnalytics.com