PORTLAND, Ore.-- TransCore today announced an agreement to provide satellite tracking and rail asset visibility solutions to Atlanta-based Southern Company, one of the nation’s largest producers of electricity. The technology will provide a real-time overview of its fleet of approximately 16,000 rail cars that serve the company’s power plants across multiple rail lines throughout the Southeast.

TransCore’s system utilizes satellite tracking for exact location and status of individual rail cars as well as a user-friendly web-based interface that allows Southern Company command and control over their railcar operation.

Southern Company’s rail logistics managers access train and railcar direction and status to synchronize unloading, storage, facilities planning, and inventory. The maintenance division sees car-by-car status and history to cost-effectively schedule repairs without interrupting services.

TransCore’s satellite tracking and asset visibility technology allows the company to know exactly where an asset is, where it’s going and forecast when it’s going to get there. This will greatly enhance asset utilization, inventory management, and maintenance.

Don Thornton, senior vice president at TransCore Commercial Technology Group, adds, “In developing this comprehensive railcar tracking and management system, we benefited from Southern Company’s guidance. Their collaboration helped us maximize the use of our satellite tracking and RFID technologies.”

TransCore’s Slap & Track Mobile GPS Terminal tracks the rail cars via a state-of-the-art satellite network, which is tied into the company’s web-based Global Visibility Platform for back-end intelligence and reporting. Slap & Track is a rugged, low profile, environmentally sealed unit including battery and antenna, mounted on individual rail cars. Designed for use in all weather conditions, the terminal provides real time reports of location, direction and speed.

TransCore’s Global Visibility Platform (GVP), a web-based system providing comprehensive control for shippers of all sizes that use both fleet and non-fleet equipment, marries TransCore’s satellite tracking technology with traditional rail data for shipment and status information. This includes data generated by TransCore’s radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. In North America, railcars in interchange service are required by the Association of American Railroads to be equipped with TransCore’s Amtech RFID technology as the standard for automatic equipment identification (AEI).