• Hitachi Rail completes the acquisition of digital rail monitoring business Omnicom from international infrastructure group, Balfour Beatty
• Strategic acquisition supports the growth of Hitachi Rail’s HMAX digital asset management platform, which optimizes railway operations and maintenance
• Omnicom’s proprietary sensor technology will support Hitachi Rail customers to optimize their trackside maintenance.
Hitachi Rail has acquired the cutting-edge digital rail monitoring business Omnicom from Balfour Beatty in a strategic move to further grow HMAX, Hitachi Rail’s digital asset management business.
With HMAX already installed on over 2,000 trains globally, Omnicom solutions will now feed into the platform’s bespoke offering for Hitachi Rail’s customers around the world.
The new solutions and proprietary technology acquired by Hitachi Rail include software and hardware for surveying, inspecting and monitoring rail infrastructure assets including the overhead line and the track. The monitoring technology can be installed on trains and uses edge computing and machine learning to provide near real-time anomaly detection on rail tracks. The technology can enable the collection of trillions of bytes of images per day, allowing customers to optimize their trackside maintenance planning and the asset lifecycle. (....)