RAIL INDUSTRY GIS APPLICATIONS AND BENEFITS

The growth of GIS in the rail industry is expanding rapidly and carriers of all sizes are seeing the benefits that GIS brings to the table.  Most of the Class I Carriers have formal programs, often located within the Engineering and M of W areas.  Many have GIS staff fully engaged in efforts related to PTC implementation.  Smaller carriers and those simply wanted a more intuitive means to track their rail fleet have sought out NELS to put our expertise to work.  We are unique -- with highly experienced ESRI-GIS  specialists that also know how the rail industry works from having boots on the ground.  

NELS EXPERTISE

NELS is focused on employing GIS to drive decision-making, improve asset utilization, and drive operational efficiency.  A major area of expertise is in applying environmental, land use, population and other data layers to assess the comparative safety and risks associated with rail routing options.  There are many other firms focusing on engineering.  We focus on the moving assets and applying GIS to better utilize those assets. 

We have invested in the tools, back-end software and server capabilities, developed proprietary data layers (over the past 10 years) and posses the technical expertise to help "jump start" GIS programs, augment in-house staff and provide GIS subject-matter expertise needed to compete for rail studies and grants and to be in compliance with EPA, FRA and TSA regulatory requirements.  We have worked on projects big and small -- from yard maps for short line railroads, regional rail capacity studies to national-level hazmat risk assessments.   

RAIL NETWORK DATA LAYERS ENCOMPASSING ALL OF NORTH AMERICA

We have extensive GIS data assets covering the entire North American Rail Network, providing extensive geo-coded, empirical information under the track, on the track and adjacent to the track.  NELS GIS platform integrates and consolidates virtually any proprietary of public domain GIS data source to provide wholly integrated views, including real-time information ranging from rail car, vehicle and locomotive location to the market, environmental and geo-political attributes of specific rail lines and routes. 

GIS/GPS INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS

NELS GIS capabilities are vendor neutral.  We can integrate non-spatial data such as CLM's with geo-spatial data such as on-board, mobile GPS capture devices and fixed location AEI readers.  Our focus is on the use of the data rather than the sale of hardware.

Our solutions operate 24 x 7 and can handle heavy volumes with ease.  A recent deployment, involved delivery of real-time data to 300+ end users, integrating data from 12 different external data sources, with integrated "on-the-fly" GIS validation and enrichment is representative of our core GIS capabilities.