RFID Benefits Reaches London Tube

Filed in archive Implementation on April 5, 2006

Tube Lines, the company behind maintenance of tubes for London Underground has completed one- half of the trials of RFID technology for helping engineers pinpoint their exact location when working in London's network of tunnels. It is a three month trial which ends next month. The tags have been embedded across some of its tunnel network while equipping its engineer with 250 Symbol MC9000 mobile devices.

These tags would be providing location based information in order to place an engineer at a particular twenty meter length of track. Since GPS cannot operate in tunnels, RFID was chosen over it. These trials are a part of a massive overhaul and modernization of the London underground.

According to Martyn Capes, project manager, Tube Lines:

The trials involve putting location information onto the RFID tag, which is generally then attached to a railway sleeper. An RFID reader built into the Symbol device can then be used to tell the engineers on the track where they are.