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DataTraks grew out of founder and president Jim Bilodeau’s work for TTCI, the Transportation Technology Center, Inc., which is the American Association of Railroads’ research and development center near Pueblo, Colorado. “I first started doing work as a consultant on specific projects for TTCI. Later, as those opportunities grew I set up an office and hired additional help,” he said.
Today, the 10-person DataTraks team provides a variety of services to its clients and partners around the world, including TTCI, the Federal Railroad Administration, other railroad organizations, and the manufacturing and mining industries. The company’s focus on data gathering and analysis solutions help organizations find intelligent answers and make informed decisions about how they operate. In many cases, DataTraks systems help improve safety and save time, money and lives.
For example, the company’s SafeTraks rail stress monitoring system detects temperature-related railroad track buckling and rail breaks using a redundant mesh network along miles of track. This allows organizations like the Chinese Ministry of Railroads to closely watch its high-speed passenger rail system for early signs of trouble. “They can then perform preventative maintenance before a problem occurs, keeping trains in operation and preventing derailments, which can cause property damage, injuries, and death,” said Bilodeau.
The company’s Employee-In-Charge Portable-Remote-Terminal (EIC PRT) system helps manage rail traffic in track maintenance zones to prevent accidents by linking a locomotive’s on-board computer with a back-office server, a centralized dispatching system, and mobile devices used by track maintenance crews.
DataTraks also manages the operation and maintenance of TTCI’s acoustic bearing monitoring system nationwide. which uses a microphone array and digital signal processing to “listen” for the distinct sound signature indicating a wheel bearing on a train car is in need of maintenance. An ARC (Accessory Rail Cart) provides a small, quiet, inexpensive, easy-to-operate platform to gather data while moving along railroad tracks to analyze various track parameters.
Late last year, DataTraks became the first tenant of Loveland’s Rocky Mountain Center for Innovation and Technology, the redevelopment/revitalization project for the old Hewlett Packard campus in south Loveland.
