Trenitalia Says Buon Giorno to Smart Rail Transport

Millions of people use public transportation every day to commute to work or school, visit friends or family, or reach some far-off vacation destination.

It’s an often quick, safe, reliable, cost-effective, and energy-efficient way to get where you need to go. In fact, many people would call it the smarter way to travel.

But no matter how smart it is, it could be smarter, particularly from an asset management perspective.

Today, transportation operators all over the world are exploring innovative measures to ensure their assets (i.e., their vehicles) remain in tip-top shape, enabling these companies to optimize overall public transportation conditions and better service their customers.

One such company, Trenitalia, is using real-time sensor data and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to achieve this.

Digital transformation keeps Trenitalia on track

Trenitalia, Italy’s leading rail transport operator, serves two million passengers daily and travels 250 million kilometers annually. The company offers international connections to Austria, France, Germany, and Switzerland.

The organization recently embarked on an ambitious digital transformation project to improve the operational efficiency in the maintenance of its trains.

By employing IoT technology, Trenitalia can constantly monitor the conditions of its assets in real time, analyzing large amounts of sensor data – over 700 terabytes annually – and measuring changes in temperature, pressure, and other key parameters.

Setting the pace when it comes to predictive maintenance

With this insight, the company can perform condition-based maintenance – or even predictive maintenance – rather than attend to its vehicles on a fixed schedule based on the passage of time or kilometers traveled.

This new dynamic management maintenance system, built on the SAP HANA platform, enables Trenitalia to:

• Predict equipment malfunctions
• Improve train quality, safety, and reliability
• Avoid costly service disruptions
• Develop corrective measures
• Increase customer satisfaction

The adoption of IoT-enabled sensors is also expected to help Trenitalia to reduce annual maintenance costs by 8–10% – a major feat for a company that typically spends 1.3 billion euros on maintenance per year.

Manage your assets like a digitalized enterprise should

It’s vital that transportation operators can quickly react to the operational stresses impacting their vehicles. With IoT, Trenitalia is taking an innovative approach to this, successfully managing its assets like any truly digitalized enterprise should.

With digital transformation on the rise, it’s imperative that your asset-intensive organization possesses the capabilities it needs to connect, collaborate, predict, and simulate.

Don’t miss the International SAP Conference on Asset Management in The Hague, Netherlands, on November 3–4 to explore how your company can deepen its insights into its assets by embracing the latest state-of-the-art technology from SAP.

Register now for your chance to watch inspiring keynote presentations, hear informative customer case studies from Trenitalia, Deutsche Bahn, Dong Energy, Royal Dutch Shell, Stadtentwässerungsbetriebe Köln, and more. Participate in hands-on workshops, see cutting-edge solution demos, and connect with your peers and industry thought leaders.

On November 4, SAP will be offering SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service usability tests. Schedule an appointment now to spend an hour test-driving this solution and chatting with SAP experts.

Learn more about the International SAP Conference on Asset Management by following @SCMatSAP on Twitter!