What factors inspired the establishment of Vision IT? 

Working in the railway industry for many years with a sense of creating value for no one, I was aware that there is a strong difference between passengers’ expectations, rail professionals and railway operators. I developed an idea for establishing a communication channel between trains, engineers and passengers. With this in mind, I left my corporate work, and established VisionIT in 2019, Kyiv for digitalizing the railway which is heavily regulated and old school. Train Tracker is the first solution established for creating a communication channel between Trains, Engineers and Operators for increasing passenger safety & satisfaction and cost reduction on maintenance and operation. 

What are the wide array of services and solutions provided by VISION IT? How would you describe your most popular offering(s)?

• Train Tracker / TT: A real-time tracking and tracing system which shows trains on a map, with alarms and alerts for emergency cases and fault prediction/analysis. 
• Train Tracker and Surveillance/ TT&S: Combines train data with real-time video streaming for monitoring trains, and infrastructure and ensuring passengers’ safety. 
• Digital Depot: Mobile app-based maintenance management system combines real-time train data, and data created during the work by engineers including personnel info, warehouse status, and train location, with data analytics prediction modules. 
• Digital Twin: Trains Digital Version for monitoring on a real-time basis, we are absolutely the first company use such visual and data analytics technology 
• Vision + : It is Condition Based Maintenance (CBM), we are the first company that applies successfully CBM all thanks to real-time info and engineering know-how. 

What is the vision and mission statement of the company? How do the company’s offerings align with its values and goals?

Our vision is digitalizing and making heavily regulated traditional Operation and Maintenance systems smart, and being a market leader in innovative automated transportation solutions by making our solutions available to everyone at affordable prices. We aim to facilitate the management of transportation via our fully automated, accident-free innovative railway system solutions based on IoT, AI and other cutting-edge technology solutions. 

How are the company’s offerings working towards revolutionizing the railway systems with innovative solutions?

Everyone knows that Rail transportation is safe, but it is not preferable transport in many countries due to its unreliability and comfort issues. It is annoying and frustrating to travel while Air Conditioner is not working during a hot summer day, or the restroom is out of the water while on long-distance travel. Railway companies focus so much on safety while compromising comfort and ticket prices. 

Our innovative solution ensures automation in railway systems that eliminates human-related errors and can predict needs before they occur including comfort-related failures during operation. As a result operator and maintenance teams can take proactive actions. 

We definitely offer more trains available for service operations, increased passenger comfort, fewer operation disruptions, and reduced train maintenance downtimes.

How is VISION IT leveraging technology to prevent accident and collision-free operations?

We implement cutting-edge methods in our solutions; such as Internet-of-Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms. We collect thousands of data per second and analyze and communicate them with drivers, Engineers and the operation team. If there is any problem in the train, the system sends alerts to related teams and automatically creates a work order for the Engineering team in real-time. For example, if a train driver smokes or an intruder gets into the driver’s cabin, we get alert right away and take necessary actions.

We use CCTV real-time streaming to detect obstacles and monitor the inside/outside of the trains. We get any type of data from trains instantly via IoT and our software algorithm interprets the data. If anyone holds a knife or gun inside the trains, cameras detect and send information to the operation and train driver. For achieving the best solution, we have partnered with many railway companies including technology companies. More significantly, we are a solution partner with Intel, and use their hardwares in Railway Transportation. Intel has such a deep technology and ecosystem that opens us new horizons, and supports us on our journey for accident free technology. 

What are the challenges you face? With respect to that, how does VISION IT ensure catering to your customer’s requirements? 

We have a wide range of customers, and we try to meet their different needs expectations and requirements. The most significant challenge we have had until now is the evacuation of civilians during the full-scale war in Ukrainian cities. 

Trains were overloaded with almost 3 times their seat capacity for some time. We helped engineers and operators to know the status of the trains and passengers. During the first month of the war, we had millions of cyber attacks on our servers in Ukraine. This caused some slowdown in our systems, but we remained to serve even with new additional functions they needed. By doing this, we not only ensured to adapt ourselves to our customer’s new reality, but also supported them when they needed it the most.

Therefore, in VisionIT, we believe customer satisfaction can only be realized not when the customer tries to adapt the technologies we bring, but when the technology we serve meet the needs and create value to the customers.”

What would be the top three goals for VISION IT in the coming years?

• Increasing Rail Transportation’s value: rail transportation is the least preferred transport in developing, and even in many developed countries. For example, many would prefer Uber or Lyft over the metro in many cities in the US. Everyone knows rail is safe, but it is not comfortable. The only way to bring passengers back is by increasing comfort. 
• Cost-effective solution: railway solutions are heavily served by programs created for different industries. It doesn’t fit, is not usable, and is very expensive. We create solutions for only railways, and not with crazy price tags. 
• Anyone can use a prototype: an operation and management system that can be used right away like WhatsApp easy, quick and reliable. 

In your opinion, what makes VISION IT exclusive in the transportation sector? 

We try to bring everything under one umbrella; trains, passengers, engineers, rail operators, and operating companies. We do not only focus on the comforts of passengers, but also on rail professionals who work on trains and rail networks. 

“There will always be a problem once you are on the market, the only thing that gets you ahead is the speed and value of the solution you bring up.”