While rail and transit organisations are great at collecting various forms of data, they typically struggle to effectively analyse it in order to inform decision making. With the ongoing digital transformation, the increasing volume and speed at which data can be collected, and therefore needs to be consumed, is becoming a significant problem for track maintenance teams.
Compounding this is the likelihood that data is coming from multiple hardware suppliers, each providing their own independent software solution for its analysis, resulting in the creation of data silos across the organisation. What is needed is a solution that is hardware-neutral. A system that provides the ability to consolidate and manage all third-party information, thereby providing easy access to data it can trust as the basis of all types of analysis, including for example linear analytics related to track maintenance.
The data silo obstacles for rail and transit
With data coming from multiple sources and in many formats, the variety of this information often exceeds the understanding of a single person. Different teams will likely use a range of isolated datasets to perform specific activities across a network, and different team members will typically use and understand the different types of data in a number of ways, so the system should allow for the seamless sharing of datasets between the business units involved. In a world where so-called ‘Big Data’ is increasingly the basis for critical decisions within an organisation, any solution they deploy needs to address four substantial obstacles of these ‘Linear Data’ silos.
Watch the on-demand Tech Talk: The Benefits of Consolidating Data Silos.