Canadian National Railway Company CNI has entered into a five-year agreement with Duos Technologies Group DUOT for Artificial Intelligence or AI rail safety data. The deal makes DUOT eligible to offer a subscription-based safety data service to railcar owners and shippers using CNI’s network.
In a bid to augment its manual inspection processes, Canadian National has been making use of Machine Vision/AI Wayside Detection technology across its routes in Canada and the United States for five years. Through this strategy, Canadian National is able to improve the efficiency of its fleet, in turn leading to a safer and more reliable railway.
Canadian National’s executive vice-president and chief network operating officer Patrick Whitehead was quoted as saying “By leveraging Duos' technology, we are enhancing our inspection processes, ensuring better maintenance and health of our overall fleet through key data points and predictive analytics.”
CNI’s five-year deal with DUOT comes close on the heels of the former trimming its earnings per share growth outlook for the current year following labor disruptions that threatened to cripple the economy of Canada. Canadian National now expects adjusted EPS to increase in the low single-digit range compared with its previous expectation of mid to high single-digit growth.
The dispute was regarding multiple topics including higher pay, scheduling and worker fatigue. Apart from CNI, operations at another Canadian railroad operator, Canadian Pacific Kansas City CP, were affected by the work stoppage. Unionized employees of CP and CNI resorted to lockout on Aug. 22 after an agreement with the union — Teamsters Canada Railway Conference — could not be reached in nine months of negotiations and the deadline passed.
Finally, workers of CNI and CP resumed operations after Canada’s Labor Minister, Steven MacKinnon, stepped in and referred the labor dispute for binding arbitration.
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