On March, 16th, 2020, one of my (co)supervised M.Sc. Students, Miss Bruna Neves, was called for her project proposal exam. She proposed to design a prototype of a predictive model based on machine learning techniques to increase railroad transportation productivity.
The examination committee was composed by Prof. Rodrigo Rosa (supervisor), myself (co supervisor) and Professors Patricio Pires and Gustavo Pessin and due to the social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project proposal took place through a videoconference.
This project is being sponsored by VALE and FAPES as part of a broader research partnership signed with UFES. It aims to predict the upcoming railroad speed restrictions based on the track geometry car big data. Getting to know the speed restrictions to be imposed in advance the railroad maintenance teams can plan ahead to fix the root cause, reducing the impact in railroad traffic. Besides that, decreasing the number of speed reductions imposed in a railroad can improve the average speed thus increasing transportation system productivity.
Applied research is what companies need today. When you meet a student like Bruna, dedicated, who predisposes to go deep in science and apply to real life, we arrive at an excellent result for society and for the academy.
Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Rosa
By the stage demonstrated by Miss Bruna Neves in her M.Sc. research she is already in the homestretch and soon she will cross the finish line in her post graduation journey.
Congratulations Miss Bruna Neves. That was an impressive achievement! If you just keep it going the pace you are, soon you will be ready to showcase the research results and I wish to be there to testimony your last step in the Master Degree journey.
