Lennart Andersson - Project Manager - Swedish Transport Administration

Lennart Andersson - Project Manager - Swedish Transport Administration

How is your organisation involved with RFID technology?
The rail part of the Swedish Transport Administration is driving a number of pilot projects with EPC/RFID tags on goods wagons. We started working with RFID technology around 2007, as part of the EU-funded research project Freightwise, which has representation from 14 countries. The project’s main objective is to support the use of intermodal transport, the transportation of goods using different transport modes.  A number of RFID projects, including ours, were initiated as part of Freightwise. The ultimate goal of our work with RFID at the Swedish Transport Administration is to help develop a standard for the identification of wagons which would enable the traceability and visibility of goods wagons across Europe. We hope that someday, all goods wagons in Europe will be tagged and all railway tracks will have compatible RFID-reading equipment.
    
Can you tell us about some of the pilots you are running?
Our pilot projects are all showing good results. In one of our projects, EPC/RFID is being used on high-speed trains carrying mail between Stockholm and Gothenburg. These wagons are generally about 4 meters away from the RFID readers on the sides of the tracks, so the first thing we had to do was to verify whether it was even possible to read RFID tags from that distance on a train travelling at 160 kilometers per hour! I'm pleased to say it is possible – in fact, it worked perfectly.

Another project is being run with a company called SCA who wanted to be able to track bales of paper traveling from their factory near Piteå, Sweden to a small city near Umeå, Sweden. A third project is underway with Swedish Steel (SSAB) on the railcars they use to transport steel slabs from Luleå to Borlänge. For both the SCA and SSAB projects, we built an infrastructure of readers on both sides of the train tracks in question. Scanning and information gathering has worked well in these cases too.

Yet another project is underway with the inland terminal at Falköping and the Port of Gothenburg. Containers are loaded on RFID-tagged wagons in Falköping. The wagons are first read south of Falköping, then outside Alingsås and finally in the Gothenburg port. The information will be used to make loading and unloading at the port more efficient.

How does the scanning and information gathering work?
First, there are EPC/RFID tags affixed to some train wagons. Then, there are EPC/RFID readers connected to axel sensors, which are mounted on the train tracks. These sensors are activated by the wheel flange of a passing train, and they can "count" how many axels have passed, and then calculate how many wagons have passed. They also know exactly where on the train the individual wagons with RFID tags are located.

What benefits do these RFID solutions bring to your customers?
With a bit more development, this system can enable 'Just-in-Time' production and supply of products, which would allow our customers to reduce their stock and as a result save money.  And since transportation in general would be made more efficient, the costs for suppliers and transport companies will also be reduced. This means less environmental impact by the transport companies.

Even train operators and the Swedish Transport Administration will see benefits from the EPC/RFID infrastructure. The readers will be placed alongside existing detectors that help find faults on trains. By combining the information from these detectors with information from the EPC/RFID system, we can easily know exactly which vehicle has a problem. This means that the EPC/RFID solution can be used for preventive wagon maintenance. Depots that service the wagons will get better information. The wagons can be kept in better condition. Track wear and tear is reduced. Costs for track maintenance are lower and there are fewer traffic disruptions.

With such successful pilots underway, do you have plans for the next steps?
The Swedish Transport Administration plans to build an infrastructure of EPC/RFID readers across the whole country. We estimate that we will need approximately 700 readers to cover all tracks at stations hubs and marshalling yards. Technical specifications for the procurement of RFID equipment are being produced in 2010, and we hope to begin the roll-out in 2011 and be in operation by about 2013.

Our EPC/RFID projects are the first in rail within Europe that have as an objective the development of a European standard. We are certain that when we can demonstrate the benefits in Sweden, other countries will become interested. Once the final infrastructure has been fully developed, it will be possible to track wagons and goods across the whole of Europe. That means a Swedish company such as SSAB which supplies metal for the car industry to many different factories across Europe will be able to follow its goods all the way to their final destination. This is not possible today.

To enable our solution to be developed into a European standard, we are building it upon the GS1 System of global standards. The GS1 EPC/RFID code is the foundation of all of our work, and GS1's local Member Organisations in Sweden and across Europe will surely have an important role to play.

What is your vision for RFID in the future?
We see huge opportunities for RFID technology in the transportation sector, because it makes it possible for companies to follow their goods in real time in a way that simply cannot be done today. As stock-in-transit becomes increasingly common, it will be even more important for a customer to know the whereabouts of its goods in the transport chain. RFID will surely be a big part of responding to these demands.

The Swedish Transport Administration works to achieve accessible, high quality, secure and environmentally aware rail, air, sea and road transport. They have the overall responsibility for drawing up regulations and ensuring that authorities, companies, organisations and citizens abide by them. For more information about their activities, visit http://www.transportstyrelsen.se/en/

Original interview with the Swedish Transport Administration by Mats Wilder. Translation of original interview material by Alice Mukaru. A version of this first appeared in the GS1 Sweden Quarterly Magazine FOKUS in December 2009.