RZD to Commission More Operator-Free Locomotives

OAO RZD is to widely commission operator-free locomotives, the Interfax quotes OAO RDZ Senior Vice President Valentin Gapanovich. He made this statement at the Joint Meeting of the Construction and Railway Transport Standardization Technical Committees.

“A lot will change in three-five years”, Mr. Gapanovich said. “We implement artificial intelligence innovations. There will be no operator assistants and, in some time, there will be no operators either”.

Operator-free locomotives are already operated at the Luzhskaya Sortirovochnaya Station in Leningrad Oblast. The locomotives were commissioned in 2015.

“Trust me, there are a lot of new technologies”, Mr. Gapanovich noted. “And we need to consider these innovations at the design and construction phases”