What Insurers May Learn by Train Spotting!

On 3rd February at 8:55pm EST in East Palestine Ohio, United States, a freight train derailed causing an environmental disaster, which it appears the full implications of the incident will not be evident for some time.

Wierdly, two additional derailments have made the news in the last few days, a second one in Ohio (Owned and operated by the same company as the one above) and one in Greece.

Although these are terrible events, they are not new! In fact the US alone averages 1200 train derailments a year! Thats an average of 23 a week (see stats below).

However, the positive news is that these numbers have reduced by circa 50% since its peak in 2004 and will likeley continue to fall. Following consultation and approval by congress of the 'Rail Safety Improvement Act' in 2008 the implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) has now been completed nationwide but the trend to improved safety is already clear and it appears has been noticeable for some time as the technology was roled out.

Essentially, PTC is a massive #IoT project with data sources and sensors spanning the nationwide rail network. While each railroad handles the details of its PTC design itself, all must be compatible, so that any locomotive can run on any railroad and have PTC work the same way.

This safety technology will have a significant impact on railroad customers. Freight users will find that their shipments are delivered more reliably. Passengers will see improved safety and better on-time performance. And of course losses due to accidents will be significantly reduced.

As #insurers move into the world of "predict and prevent" and #connectedInsurance they will be presented with new challenges such as disperate sensor technologies and the management of new communications mechanisms and data sources. Although daunting, these challenges have been overcome, you just need to do a bit of train spotting!