Russian Railways, the national rail operator, plans to introduce RFID tagging across all its assets, from rail cars to tracks and stations, over the next year, the Russian newspaper Izvestiya reported last week, citing a source in the Russian Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
Reader devices will be mounted on locomotives. The data read from a particular RFID tag along the way will be transmitted as a radio signal to special servers.
In addition, Russian Railways may partner with the Russian Ministry of Transportation in RFID tagging containers to enable continuous monitoring of the shipping of freight. In this endeavor, RFID tagging may apply not only to rail, but also to motor, sea and air transportation.
St. Petersburg-based Avangard is said to be developing RFID tagging equipment for the Russian Railways project.
