As a next step in the companies’ twenty-year partnership, GE Transportation and Kazakhstan Railways Freight Transportation signed an agreement to deploy GE’s Trip Optimizer solution on KTZ-Freight Transportation’s fleet of TE33A Evolution-series locomotives to improve the productivity of freight transportation in Kazakhstan.
Today, over 700 new and modernized locomotives in Kazakhstan are powered by GE engines, and the country’s fleet is the youngest and most fuel-efficient in the entire CIS region. This agreement comes after KTZ and GE Transportation signed a Memorandum of Understanding in June 2017 to explore the use of digital technologies to reduce fuel consumption, optimize power distribution, enhance operational safety, and improve utilization of their fleet.
“We are happy to expand our cooperation with KTZ-Freight Transportation and pleased to have the opportunity to apply GE Transportation’s digital solutions in Central Asia,” said Gokhan Bayhan, General Manager of GE Transportation in Russia/CIS, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. “Rolling out Trip Optimizer will help increase the efficiency of KTZ freight locomotives, reducing fuel consumption by at least 5 percent and lowering harmful atmospheric emissions.”
Trip Optimizer is an intelligent train control system that analyzes routing and cargo data and calculates optimum speed and fuel consumption profiles in real time. Trip Optimizer recently surpassed a milestone of 10,000 units ordered across the world. It has helped customers save more than 146 million gallons of fuel and surpass a record 256 million miles in auto control mode. This is the equivalent of taking 100,000 cars off the road or eliminating 10,000 tons of CO2 each week.
About Trip Optimizer
A state-of-the-art onboard train control system, Trip Optimizer (TO) functions much like an aircraft’s autopilot, learning a train’s characteristics, creating an optimal trip profile, then automatically controlling locomotive throttle and dynamic brakes to reduce fuel burn and provide efficient train handling. The result? Trains run on time, operate more smoothly and use fuel more efficiently — resulting in 3-17% fuel savings and corresponding emissions reduction.
About GE Transportation
At GE Transportation, we are in the business of realizing potential. We are a global technology leader and supplier of equipment, services and solutions to the rail, mining, marine, stationary power and drilling industries. Our innovations help customers deliver goods and services with greater speed and savings using our advanced manufacturing techniques and connected machines. Our digital solutions, which provide data-driven insights to improve efficiency, leverage Predix – GE’s platform for the Industrial Internet. Established more than a century ago, GE Transportation is a division of the General Electric Company that began as a pioneer in passenger and freight locomotives. That innovative spirit still drives GE Transportation today and is strengthened by our ability to serve customers more holistically through the GE Store – a global exchange of knowledge, technology and tools across all GE businesses that ultimately provides better outcomes for customers. GE Transportation is headquartered in Chicago, IL, and employs approximately 10,000 employees worldwide.
