‘Give us your rail data and we’ll cut your costs’: meet the data experts proving greener is cheaper
Bringing down fuel leakage, using assets wisely and managing workplace air and noise conditions… These are just some of the things that railway companies can do by properly utilising their data, according to Guy Barkley. The CEO and founder of award-winning Atmo Technology wants to help companies do just that, and generate some savings along the way. “There is just a lot of data that nobody is looking at.”
To illustrate how the UK-based data analysis company can help railway companies become more efficient, Guy looks back at a case his company analysed at a South Western Railway (SWR) depot. As well as noise monitoring to pinpoint sources of nuisance noise, with the aim of safeguarding staff and nearby residents, Atmo looked at the depot’s fuel consumption. “They spend tens of millions of pounds on fuel every year, just at one depot”, he says. “So we looked at fuel efficiency data to find anomalies and found some things that suggested engine failures or fuel leaks. Only six or seven months into the project, we had identified hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of potential savings.”
It is findings like these, Guy thinks, that give Atmo such an edge. “Our goal is to generate return on investment”, he says, “while we do all the good stuff such as air quality, noise, safety and environment. All across the UK and Europe there are lots of cost pressures. So where we can help make savings, why wouldn’t we? And very often we do find that the projects where we can have the biggest impact, in terms of CO2, have an associated cost benefit as well. So it’s sort of a win-win.”
