TRIG Receives Funding from Transport Canada to Advance Rail Safety Technology

Transport Canada is a longstanding promoter of safe, secure, efficient, and environmentally responsible transportation. In today’s rail climate, these values are crucial for the development of technology that will advance and increase the safety of transport by rail. Transport Canada’s Rail Safety Improvement Program (RSIP) was created as a means of encouraging those in the rail industry to improve rail safety, address climate change resiliency, and reduce injuries and fatalities related to rail transportation. RSIP provides federal funding to a wide range of eligible safety improvements including research into new safety technologies.

Transrail Innovation Group (TRIG) is a recipient of this funding program and is leading the “Improving Rail Freight Car Safety Through Innovative Telematics” project. The objective of this project is to establish scientific research and technological development targeted at rail safety improvement priorities. TRIG will not only focus on developing new technologies but also on leveraging and enhancing existing processes. “TRIG will be evaluating existing sensor technology and developing new sensors to enable a full range of performance monitoring, focusing on operational safety and efficiency,” says Robert Tasker, founder and CEO of TRIG. The telematics technology will focus on monitoring wheel bearing performance and predictive failure measurement, wheel set health, handbrake status, GPS location, impact detection, and freight cargo status. 

This is a huge opportunity for TRIG to expand their vision of engineering a safer and more efficient ecosystem for transloading and shipping commodities by rail. The RSIP aims to increase safety, but also to increase public confidence in Canadian rail transportation.