August 16, 2014

Rail companies to experiment with lasers against leaves

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 3:54 pm

ProRail is planning to use lasers to burn off the leafy mulch that coats rails in the autumn, Z24 reports.

The experiment is a collaboration between ProRail (network), Dutch Rail (operator) and Delft University of Technology. In another test, suggested by a train driver and also held this autumn, ProRail will wet rails to prevent leaves from sticking to them.

A similar trial with lasers was done in 2006 in the UK. At the time, ProRail felt the technology was not good enough. Industrial Laser Solutions has an interesting article about the technology.

In the autumn falling leaves form a mulch that cause train wheels to slip and slide. As a result, both braking and accelerating go slower, causing delays in the service.

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July 26, 2014

Dutch Rail may not block porn on free Wi-Fi in trains

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 5:27 pm

free-wifi-on-trainTech mag PCM has discovered that Dutch Rail is blocking certain porn sites on their free Wi-Fi network on the train.

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (formerly OPTA), which polices Internet access providers, has confirmed that blocking porn on the train is illegal. Dutch Rail appeared unaware what exactly it was they’re blocking: “We’ve taken over the system from T-Mobile, the company that managed our network until March 2014. At the time of the transition they determined for us what filters were needed to keep the network functioning smoothly.” Dutch Rail promised yesterday that it will look into the situation.

As we wrote earlier, Dutch Rail is allowed to block certain services to keep their network running smoothly. PCM points out that the way the train company does this for sites like YouTube is by only blocking the videos, but you can still view the comments. Porn sites however have been blocked entirely, PCM writes. Sites such as TorrentFreak have been blocked as well. Contrary to what the name suggests, TorrentFreak only offers written news articles.

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April 21, 2014

Dutch Rail’s slow replacement for high speed train keeps breaking down

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 3:14 pm

traxx-roel-hemkesIf you’ve followed the drama with Dutch Rail’s showpiece train Fyra, you’ll remember that they had to replace it because it kept embarrassing them by dropping parts on the rails and by not running as often as one would expect from a regular train service.

The replacement came in the form of Bombardier’s Traxx locomotives. According to Metro, the new train is not without its own problems. Last Friday the paper wrote that a Traxx train breaks down about 4.8 times a day on average. As a comparison, the Thalys, a high speed train run by a consortium of European countries that uses the same tracks, only breaks down once a day.

The malfunctions of the Traxx system are partially caused by a failure to connect the train to its overhead lines. A spokesperson for Dutch Rail told Metro that Thalys trains are more capable of restoring a connection to the overhead lines than Traxx locomotives.

A plan by transport company Arriva to operate an Amsterdam – Brussels connection on the high speed track was flat-out rejected by junior transport minister Wilma Mansveld last October. She sees no reason to take away the lucrative connection from state-owned Dutch Rail.

(Photo of a Traxx locomotive at Amsterdam Central Station by Roel Hemkes, some rights reserved)

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February 17, 2013

Infrared sensors detect train composition for travel app

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:04 pm

Dutch Rail has started an experiment that lets its customers see which train compartments are relatively empty and therefore likely to have seats available.

To this end, the company has equipped 11 trains on the Zwolle-Amersfoort line with 280 infrared sensors. The data of these sensors is sent to an app that shows where there is room in the train (see illustration). Two minutes after the train has left a station, the app will be updated.

The app called Reisplanner Xtra also provides information about whether the train has wifi, where the quiet compartments are, where the first and second compartments are, and so on. It is unclear how long this test will run.

(Link and image: Dutch Rail. Via Springwise)

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January 19, 2013

Belgium bans Dutch Rail’s top train

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 9:48 pm

A Belgian rail safety body has suspended the Dutch high-speed train Fyra on its network, Dutchnews reports.

According to De Gelderlander, pieces of the train had been found on the track, which may have come loose because of chunks of ice on the track. The suspension won’t be lifted until Monday evening, according to Belgian paper Knack.

Dutch Rail introduced nine new Fyra trains on 9 December last year and cancelled its regular, cheaper Amsterdam-Brussels service on the same date. A Fyra ticket was twice as expensive as a ticket for the regular train.

State-owned Dutch Rail has a de facto monopoly on train services in the profitable areas of the Netherlands. Members of European Parliament get a 50% discount when they travel by Fyra, Dutchnews reported last year.

The new Fyra trains (model V250) are made by Italian company AnsaldoBreda, which wrote on 19 December: “The technical problems which occurred in the early days, – after careful technical analysis carried out by AB staff as well as by experts of the company that manage the network – were not imputable to the train, but to issues related to the infrastructure system.” Dutch Rail is putting the blame for the current problems squarely on AnsaldoBreda, according to treinreiziger.nl. Dutch Rail CEO Bert Meerstadt told the site: “The early problems combined with the safety risk that ice blocks are causing show that the V250 does not live up to what we agreed with its manufacturer.”

See also: Dutch Rail abused privacy ‘anonymous’ transport card users, and more

(Photo by Arnold de Vries, some rights reserved)

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September 2, 2012

Dutch Rail abused privacy ‘anonymous’ transport card users, and more

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:27 pm

Dutch Rail is on a roll. Last Tuesday Webwereld reported that the state-owned monopolist has been sending spam to the users of the ‘anonymous’ version of the OV-chipkaart, the troubled Dutch transport card.

According to the tech news site, users of the anonymous card, with which you can pay for travel across modes and providers, had to give Dutch Rail their e-mail address in order to be able to travel with the company—presumably so that Dutch rail could differentiate between first and second class. Dutch Rail would then, however, abuse those addresses by inundating them with spam.

Earlier Dutch Rail was fined 125,000 euro by the Dutch privacy authority CBP for storing sensitive data about student travellers for too long.

It has not been a good week for Dutch Rail. Yesterday De Volkskrant reported that the company has been evading taxes by buying trains using a subsidiary in Ireland. The subsidiary would then leases those trains to the Dutch parent company. Train companies pay 9% in taxes in Ireland, but 25% in the Netherlands.

Par for the course for big business, you say? That may be true, but Dutch Rail is owned by the government. Basically, this is the example the Dutch state is setting to all tax payers. To make matters worse, Dutch Rail has a monopoly on all the juicy routes in the country. Other transport companies are allowed to run trains in the country, but only in areas that are not as profitable.

Suffice it to say that politicians were not happy, with for example PvdA (Labour) leader Diederik Samson calling Dutch Rails’ tactics ‘wrong’ and an example of ‘a lack of morals’. It is unclear to me whether politicians are upset because of Dutch Rails’ behaviour, or because their baby got caught red-handed.

(Photo by Flickr user UggBoy hearts UggGirl, some rights reserved)

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March 10, 2012

Wifi roll-out on Dutch Rail trains progressing as scheduled

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 4:06 pm

Each month ten Dutch Rail trains are equipped with free wifi, so that all 365 trains should have wifi by the end of 2013, Webwereld reports. This is according to schedule.

Currently wifi is free. Dutch Rail still has to decide if it will start charging money for usage after 2012. The national government gave Dutch Rail a 15 million euro subsidy for putting wifi on its trains.

In 2011 the number of trains featuring free wifi doubled, but usage quadrupled. Data rate and session length have stayed the same, 9MB and 40 minutes respectively.

Webwereld, a computer news site, asked some of its users about their experiences with the service. The consensus seems to be that it is as good as one can expect from ‘free’, but not better. Complaints centre on bad connections and slow speeds. One odd complaint is that the operator, T-Mobile, seems to be using German IP numbers. Users get to see the German Google when they want to search, and Facebook warns them that somebody is trying to log into their account from Germany.

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February 18, 2012

Dutch banks won’t employ anti-skimming hook

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 5:56 pm

Banks like ING, ABN Amro and Rabobank refuse to fit their ATMs with special anti-skimming devices that have proven successful on ticket vending machines, Webwereld reported last Wednesday.

This despite the fact that, according to the same publication, skimming is still very much a problem in the Netherlands. In January the police caught a Romanian gang of skimmers that stole from the bank accounts of thousands of people.

Dutch Rail and Amsterdam’s public transport company GVB claim that since they introduced the so-called anti-skimming hook, their ticket vending machines have no longer been misused by skimmers.

The hook lets you insert your bank or credit card. If skimmers manage to remove the hook, the entire machine shuts down.

ING and Rabobank claim that they employ their own anti-skimming technology, ABN Amro says that it isn’t easy to fit existing machines with the hooks. Bank cards both chips and magnetic strips on them, the latter being susceptible to misuse. Banks have started a campaign to encourage consumers to use the chip rather than the magnetic strip. The latter cannot fully be replaced, as magnetic strips are still required in countries like the USA which have yet to adopt the chip-based technology.

(Photo of an anti-skimming hook discovered during a police raid, by Politie Haaglanden)

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