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Spoornet unveils regional tracking project - Freight & Trading Weekly - 30 June 2000 edition -
- Freight & Trading Weekly
30 June 2000 edition
Spoornet unveils regional tracking project
Clients will be told exact location of their cargo, writes Leonard NeillSPOORNET HAS announced a US$3million project which will enable railways to monitor the movement of trains, locomotives and containers across all the Southern African Railway Association countries.
Spoornet will invest $1million with the balance coming from Transtel, the telecommunications division of Transnet.
The rolling stock information system (RSIS) will connect all railways to it, including the neighbouring countries of Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Swaziland. It is expected to be fully operational by the end of this year.
RSIS involves implementing a real-time interactive information system for regional rail operators, says Jabulani Nkosi, Spoornet's project manager, and will enable operational systems to monitor and manage the location, status and condition of trains and containers throughout the member countries of the association.
Any one country will be able, at any time, to establish exactly where its trains are and learn the anticipated time of arrival at its destination.
This, in turn, will enable railways to inform clients of the precise location of their cargo and when it can be expected. Although it is not primarily a security system, Nkosi says it will help railway authorities determine the location of any train which might otherwise be regarded as missing.
Transnet will install 32 satellite-based tiny aperture terminals for communication purposes to act as the system's information bank. Original expenditure from both Spoornet and Transtel will be recovered from the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which is funding the project with an estimated overall cost in the region of $1,5billion.
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