The innovative "Stop" at SEF 24

The GCF project at the 6th Conference on Safety

Important and significant recognition for "STOP", the GCF project for railway work safety, selected to be presented at the 6th National Conference "Safety and Railway Operation" SEF 24, in Rome on November 7 at the Faculty of Civil and Industrial Engineering Sapienza - University of Rome.

The prestigious event, organized by For.Fer, a Training Center recognized by the National Agency for the Safety of Railways and Road and Motorway Infrastructures (ANSFISA) and CIFI - the Italian Railway Engineers, brings together experts, companies and institutions to explore technological innovations aimed at improving safety in the railway sector: an opportunity for an all-round discussion on cutting-edge opportunities and applications that can make a difference in terms of safety in the railway world.

The organizers say, "The recent revisions of the regulatory framework, technological innovations (DAC, ERTMS HD, FRMCS), the digitization of processes, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in operational management, the transformation of the network with the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, large infrastructure projects, and the green revolution represent opportunities to be seized to improve the safety and quality of the railway system's operation."

With the aim of proposing a moment of discussion between the players of the sector "in order to converge on the good practices to be adopted, with awareness and a sense of responsibility" a special Scientific Committee has evaluated and selected some of the most significant and interesting contributions for their innovative impact on the complex subject of safety.

Like “STOP” (Supervised by Trained Optical Protection), the system born from the collaboration between GCF SpA and Kiwitron Srl based on optical sensors equipped with artificial intelligence to improve safety and avoid accidents in the railway construction site.

"It is a supervision system - explains the speaker Ilario Febi, engineer of the GCF R&D Department - capable of extending the visibility of the driver of the work vehicle used in railway construction sites by generating an alarm in the event that a situation of potential danger is detected for workers or personnel on the ground".

The system is based on optical sensors equipped with artificial neural networks trained to recognize human shapes in the specific environment of the railway site and able to operate efficiently even in unfavorable environmental conditions such as the absence of natural light (typically at night) or in the presence of less than optimal weather conditions that can further limit the operator's visibility.

After months of engineering and field training to learn to discern between human shapes and "false positives", STOP made its experimental debut on the tracks in recent years and is now ready to be used on a large scale on locomotives and operating machines in GCF construction sites.

"This is certainly one of the spearheads of GCF's interventions - continues Mr. Febi - to guarantee the safety of construction sites and workers operating in environments particularly exposed to risk and it is our ambition to be able to impose a "stop" on accidents due to being hit by trains on railway sites".

GCF's commitment to research and development of systems capable of making the railway networks safer and smarter is equally important. From the “Level crossing protection”, the GCF proprietary PAI-PL system with radar technology designed for the automatic control of the crossing of level crossings equipped with complete barriers, to the "NeurAIl System", the predictive diagnostic framework that, by implementing Machine Learning models, is able to provide real-time "health" parameters relating to tracks, joints and trains in transit. A unique system which, precisely because of its innovative characteristics, has recently become a subject of study in the CIFI courses for engineers specialising in railway diagnostics.

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