Last week, we hosted our Smart Depot webinar, exploring how our revolutionary tool can help rail depots improve their operations. Here’s a brief look at some of the key points raised by Atmo CEO and Founder, Guy Barkley - along with why Smart Depot offers a practical approach to long-term improvements in depot management.
1. Asset utilisation: Reducing downtime
Rail depots manage a multitude of assets, from low-value items like compressors and heaters, to high-value mobile plant. One of the key topics discussed was how Atmo’s Smart Depot solution helps optimise asset utilisation through real-time monitoring. This enables depots to shift from reactive maintenance to predictive maintenance, minimising downtime and freeing up critical resources.
Atmo’s new scheduling feature for depot maintenance, available through the AtmoCore platform, was introduced. This intuitive feature moves away from spreadsheets, phone calls and emails and instead to simple drag-and-drop functionality to schedule and track asset maintenance in one place, significantly reducing inefficiencies across depot operations. Guy pointed out the huge potential to increase the throughput of depots in this area.
2. Environmental monitoring: Staying ahead of regulations
As regulations around environmental impact tighten, depots need better tools to monitor air quality and noise pollution. Smart Depot integrates IoT sensors with AtmoCore software to monitor environmental conditions in real time. In the webinar, Guy highlighted a case study from South Western Railway’s Salisbury Depot, where noise monitoring has been effectively used to pinpoint peak noise events and clusters of noise.
The platform tracks noise and air quality in line with standards set by World Health Organization (WHO), Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM), and Health and Safety Executive (HSE), with KPIs to alert users to exceedance based on agreed thresholds, providing depot managers with essential data to manage emissions and safeguard staff well-being.
Additionally, Guy emphasised the value of monitoring ambient conditions to understand the impact of offsite emissions more comprehensively, noting that wind direction can influence the dispersion of pollutants and affect neighbouring properties.
3. Safety and separation of people and plant: Reducing risk
One critical area addressed was the need to improve the safety of workers through better separation of people and plant. Atmo’s Smart Depot uses telematics and geofencing to design layouts that minimise these interactions, which reduces the risk of accidents and boosts overall safety.
Walkways are crucial exclusion zones, but it’s also important to ensure that large machinery does not come into contact with white fleet vehicles or other site traffic, for example. Whether or not the depot already uses GPS, Atmo addresses data gaps to provide a comprehensive overview. By monitoring the frequency and locations of interactions between heavy machinery and people, depot managers can proactively redesign workflows to prevent potential incidents.
These are just a few of the highlights from the session. Guy also delved into more detailed case studies, including how renewable energy optimisations at Network Rail’s Holgate Depot have the potential to deliver up to 30% in annual energy savings by changes to tariffs and integrating battery storage solutions.
If you’re looking to learn more about how data can help you optimise your depot’s operations, reduce costs, and improve environmental performance, watch the full webinar on demand and discover how Smart Depot could transform your operations.
Access the full webinar here: https://www.atmotech.co.uk/smart-depot-webinar-on-demand