System and method for railroad personnel safety assurance
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.
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.
21 . A collision avoidance system configured to generate and deliver collision alerts with one or more severity levels to railroad constituents, comprising:
a memory; and
a computer processor operably coupled to the memory and configured to:
generate an alert with an assigned severity level when a first geofence intersects with a second geofence, wherein sizes of the first and second geofences are based on a type of the railroad constituents; and
transmit the alert.
22 . The system of claim 21 , wherein the computer processor is further configured to determine proximity thresholds for different alert severity levels.
23 . The system of claim 22 , wherein when the computer processor detects satisfaction of a first proximity threshold, the alert indicates a first severity level.
24 . The system of claim 23 , wherein when the computer processor detects satisfaction of a second proximity threshold, the alert indicates a second severity level.
25 . The system of claim 21 , wherein the severity level indicates what action is recommended to address the alert.
26 . The system of claim 25 , wherein a first severity level indicates that a vehicle should be stopped immediately.
27 . The system of claim 25 , wherein a second severity level indicates that a vehicle is within a distance from a maintenance location such that it does not have enough time to stop before reaching the maintenance location.
28 . The system of claim 21 , wherein the severity level indicates how close one railroad constituent is to another.