Lloyd's Register, specialists in rail consultancy, and Réseau Ferré de France, French rail infrastructure manager, have started co-operation with the objective to reduce risks on the railways. Lloyd's Register has installed an asset protection system on a busy line of the French rail network in Valenciennes. 

Reseau Ferre de France (RFF) is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the rail network in France. RFF carries out programmes to survey the condition, plan maintenance and assess the utilization of the tracks, to maintain a high performance of the network. RFF strives to obtain better insight in the 'real utilization' of their tracks. RFF wants to have better information about axle loads, load imbalances, the quality of wheels and train speed. Furthermore RFF has strong interest in measurement of noise emissions of passing trains. RFF has selected Lloyd's Register Rail to provide a solution that meets their requirements.

Gotcha Monitoring Systems® is an open wayside monitoring system, based on the application of smart fibre optic sensor technology and extensive knowledge of the interaction between rail and wheel. It is easy to install and maintain due to the use of rail foot clamped fibre-optic sensors. The system supports the process of reducing risks and provide a management tool leading to significant savings in both infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance. Current experiences of infrastructure manager ProRail and maintainer NedTrain in The Netherlands have already shown these benefits.

Source: Lloyd's Register, http://www.lr.org/