Engineering-related scientific and technical services

Tender description

Network Rail plans to carry out field testing of fibre optical acoustic sensing (FOAS), internet of things (IoT) sensors and smart cameras along the railway trackside to provide ‘real-time’ data for exploiting artificial intelligence (AI), big-data, data analytics, etc. techniques for addressing railway remote condition monitoring (RCM) challenges to support efficient, reliable and safe rail operations. Network Rail invited applicants to participate in a design contest by submitting a design or plan which addressed all of the following challenge statements: 1) Train movement and position reporting; 2) Rail and wheel defects identification; 3) Level-crossing safety management; 4) Trespass and trackside presence detection. Following the completion of design contest, Network Rail selected design contest winners, these winners are being invited to participate in a phase of negotiations with Network Rail which if successful may result in the award of a service contract for the trials. Under this design contest and subsequent services agreement, Network Rail may allow additional nominated organisations to have access to the outputs from the trial.