GHD signs MoU with iTech Corporation to tackle rail depot safety with railSAFETi

Leading professional services company GHD has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with iTech Corporation for the commercialisation of a revolutionary safety system called railSAFETi to protect personnel in and around railway maintenance facilities.

The announcement comes as industry research shows that track work safety process breaches continue to account for a high proportion of safety incidents across Australia’s rail network, including an 8% increase in 2021-22. The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator (ONRSR) was notified of 477 occurrences involving breaches of worksite protection rules and procedures. Further, incident analysis reveals that both a lack of worker competency and the poor management of systems designed to record qualifications and knowledge can lead to an increased risk of hazardous events.

It’s such sobering statistics that prompted the development of railSAFETi and a commitment from GHD and iTech Corporation to collaborate to raise awareness of a potential solution.

railSAFETi is designed to protect staff and equipment by ensuring the safe and controlled movement of rolling stock into and out of the facilities. The new system improves the limitations of previous systems, which have typically offer poor systems integration and connectivity, and are difficult to maintain and certify.

In contrast, railSAFETi can be tailored for a wide variety of implementation settings and incorporates readily available proprietary safety hardware and software tools, with a focus on reliability and flexibility. Common rail depot features such as multiple maintenance roads, bi-fold powered train doors, overhead traction power, turntables, overhead cranes, wheel lathes, train lifting systems and manual derailers can all be integrated with the system.

Under the terms of the MoU, GHD and iTech Corporation will jointly pursue deployment opportunities for railSAFETi across Australia under an exclusive arrangement. By pooling their resources, knowledge, and experience, the two organisations aim to leverage synergies to help clients address the disturbingly high incidence of fatalities and injuries that continue to occur at rail maintenance facilities across the country.

“While the MoU has been signed for Australia, the new system has scope to assist rail clients internationally in other geographies as the technology is transferable. GHD is ready and capable of providing support to enhance rail facility operations,” says Neil Holt, Engineering Director – Rail, GHD.

“Through our strategic partnership with iTech, we are combining our extensive, international rail experience and deep technical resources and iTech’s expertise in automation, electrical engineering, and systems engineering to respond to this critical area of safety in rail,” Neil continues. “To this end we look forward to offering our rail clients innovative, robust and fully certified solutions based on this proven technology.”

John Cranley, National Rail Leader – Australia, adds, “With seasoned rail experts across Australasia, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and North America, our people have extensive technical know-how and industry insight on both national and global scales. We offer proficient in-house services, merging deep rail engineering experience with cutting-edge digital design techniques to deliver innovative, cost-efficient, and compliant solutions tailored to project specifications. This MoU is an exciting partnership for GHD and one that will enhance our rail offering to deliver improved safety for railway maintenance facilities.”

“We’re truly excited about collaborating with GHD to elevate the potential of the railSAFETi rail depot safety system, bring real change to safety standards at rail facilities and set a new benchmark for protecting people working in rail maintenance facilities,” added Nick Fondas, Managing Director, iTech Corporation. ”Working closely with the rail sector over many years we’ve seen first-hand scenarios where the protection of personnel working at depots has fallen short, in many cases due to the complexity of establishing and maintaining a robust, certifiable approach. railSAFETi was born in response to this, to provide clients and operators with a reliable, integrated system that covers many bases.”

“Clients are already acknowledging railSAFETi system’s high degree of safety certification, flexibility, the high reliability of hardware elements, and straightforward maintenance and support," added Joe Dwyer, iTech Director of Engineering and designer of railSAFETi.

Acerca de GHD

GHD es una empresa líder en servicios profesionales que opera en los mercados mundiales de agua, energía y recursos, medio ambiente, infraestructura y edificaciones, y transporte. Comprometidos con la visión de garantizar que el agua, la energía y las comunidades sean sostenibles para las futuras generaciones, GHD ofrece soluciones en consultoría, servicios digitales, ingeniería, arquitectura, medio ambiente y construcción a clientes del sector público y privado. Fundada en 1928 y propiedad de sus trabajadores, GHD cuenta con una red de más de 12.000 profesionales en más de 160 oficinas en cinco continentes.