Siemens has been chosen as the long-term service provider for the Atlanta Streetcar system to enhance vehicle reliability, operational safety, and fleet availability. Under the partnership, Siemens will provide technical support and materials for all preventative and corrective maintenance related to the streetcars.

Siemens will also use its digital rail services platform Railigent™ to analyze data to help improve streetcar operations, including using data to help identify high-risk failures before they occur. The new effort will help the streetcar system reduce its maintenance-related service interruptions for riders, improve vehicle availability, and reduce costs.

Siemens will use the Railigent™ platform to conduct digital analysis of the streetcar operation through data captured via on-board systems from the Siemens-built vehicle. The platform will analyze data points to make the best use of the fleet, including the ability to help predictively identify potential equipment failures before they occur and additional operational efficiencies like bottleneck identification to reduce delays and potential energy savings. Siemens will also be able to leverage its service footprint across similar technologies and allow Atlanta Streetcar to benefit from economies of scale which would otherwise not exist on smaller fleet sizes.

Siemens will embed personnel on-site for dedicated service and customer support, implement a comprehensive vehicle maintenance program, provide material usage forecasts, and optimized supply chain for material delivery.

Siemens has also located a Mindsphere Application Center for Rail on the Georgia Tech campus in close proximity to Atlanta Streetcar. This center will use data gathered from intelligent sensors and continue to develop the advanced software platforms to put intelligence behind billions of data points created on the country’s rail systems.

This insight will help the Atlanta streetcar and rail operators across the U.S. improve their operations and create an “Internet of Trains” to bring infrastructure and vehicles into the digital era. Powered by software tools, the Digital Service business will help rail operators reduce unplanned downtime, improve operational efficiency, and enable improved business planning and performance, as well as generate energy and cost savings. Siemens also recently opened an East Coast Service Center in New Castle, Del., as a dual-purpose 24-hour remote support and services facility, as well as a distribution center.