Mobility Innovators

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:00:00]):

A big challenge for doing innovation is change management, you know? Because you basically need to understand how to change your company even from the point of your process, because the new technologies are totally different from what they used to have and what they use to produce. So you win new competencies, you will be in a new process, and so on. And how to make, and accept these to the managers is also very challenging then about the culture, right?

Because also this impacts a lot. But the culture, I will say that the important point is that you have a clear idea of what you would like to do. You drive by business, so you present correctly your business case and your business plan. And then the key role could be Italian, could be English, could be Japanese, could be any kind of culture, is communication. You need to understand based on, what are the targets? Call to present all this information to them.

Jaspal Singh ([00:01:11]):

Welcome to the Mobility Innovators Podcast.

Jaspal Singh ([00:01:19]):

Hello Everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Mobility Innovators Podcast. I am your host Jaspal Singh. Mobility Innovator podcast invites key innovators in the transportation and logistics sector to share their experience and their forecast for the future. In this episode, we’ll be discussing the latest innovation in the Real Sector.

Our today guest is Head of Digital Strategy and Innovation at Hitachi Rail, a multinational rolling stock manufacturer company with operations in 38 countries around the world. He’s responsible for understanding the innovative trends and proposing new digital investments at Hitachi, including the identification of strategic partnerships.

I’m so happy to welcome Wellington Toapanta, Head of Digital Strategy and Innovation at Hitachi Rail. It’s now time to listen.

Hello Wellington. Thank you for joining us on the show. I’m really looking forward to learning from your experience today.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:02:14]):

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Jaspal Singh ([00:02:17]):

So today I’ll be spending time getting to know about you, your work at Hitachi Rail, and your thought on innovation and mobility and the rail sector.

To start with, I would like to take your macro perspective. You’re working in the railway and metro innovation space for around 15 years now. How has the real sector evolved in the last 15 years?

Generally, people call the rail industry an elephant as it moved very slowly. What do you make of real sector repetition that has been slow to adopt new technologies?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:02:48]):

So thank you for the question Jaspal, considering there are two questions. About the first one, I think the railway environment, the rail technology are evolving a lot in the last few years and like you said, the key difference is that the adoption. The adoption is just low, but the technology is evolving. So I will say with the racing of digitalization for sure the technologies in railway are evolving from the point of view of signaling automation, even rolling stock. Because now we are having IoT, the Internet of trains, right? And this is giving a lot of benefits to our customers because they are not only implementing the next generation solutions, but also they are leveraging from all this data in order to have benefits from the operational and maintenance. In the past years, I will say that they were more focused in the maintenance part, but now there are a lot of data that can allow them also to increase and efficient the operation activities and reduce the operation cost.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:04:00]):

So this about that and about why adoption, right? Yes. You said that railways is an elephant, Yeah. Because of the niche of the market, you know, we are speaking about the technology that you are basically in some sort of way playing with the life of the people. So you need to be sure that this technology has to be safe. Obviously, that means that for the implementation, it will take more time. Think about how much time takes to implement a metro system. So you buy now the last generation technology, but then the people, the customer will benefit on this technology in 6-8 years maybe. Yeah. So at the end, basically what you vote, now will be eight years old when it will be in operation. So the technology continues to go ahead by the main point is the implementation. And it’s not only the implementation because of the safety, it’s because for implementing a railway line, you have to do a lot of civil works. So also, this take time you have to install all the rails, then you have to install the technology, then you have to test the technology, then you have to put in place the trains. You have to test the trains, you have to test all the integration together. And then finally you can have your system operative, you know? So unfortunately, it’s the way that is in that way, you know?

Jaspal Singh ([00:05:36]):

And I think you touch a very important point saying the technology is evolving. It’s the implementation which is slow. And the reason, like you rightly mentioned about the testing, the safety and it’s about life of people. And there are thousands of people travel on the train. So you cannot risk anybody’s life. These all are great point. And I love what you mentioned that our trains are changing signaling. We are seeing new trains. We are next generation of trains are coming, but the problem is the operator need to order something today, which they want in next four or five years. So you cannot wait till the new technology come. You have to take initiative today. Thanks for sharing that.

Now, regarding your personal site. So according to your LinkedIn profile, you did your bachelor in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Geneva. After that, you started your career as an innovation manager with Ansaldo STS. The company was literally required by Hitachi Rail in 2019 and became Hitachi Rail STS. And you took over the new role of head of Digital Strategy and Innovation in April 2022. This is something we found on your LinkedIn, but I’m more curious to know anything which you haven’t mentioned on LinkedIn or any interesting career fact which you haven’t shared in the public profile yet.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:06:49]):

I would say that maybe it’s nothing interest from the, my career point of view, but something very peculiar is that I did all my career in Italy, but I’m not Italian. So I’m Latino American. I’m from Ecuador. I born and raised in Ecuador. I came here in Italy to do my university, then I got my degree and the opportunity came out to join Ansaldo STS. And they basically adopt me. Since there, I’m being adopted by Italy and I’m doing my career very good. But this is something that is important to share because basically you can imagine how difficult is for an immigrant to create a new life and a career in a different country. And I was able to do that. So this is something that I will say, if you have the capabilities and you are willing to fight for where you are willing to fight, and also you have a suitable company that allow you to grow, I think that is something possible to do. So I’m very grateful for Hitachi Rail that gave me this opportunity and based on my professional has given me this career path now. Thanks.

Jaspal Singh ([00:08:15]):

Actually I really love your answer because recently, I was listening to one guy who’s the founder of LinkedIn, and he said, immigrants are the real entrepreneurs because they leave their country, their network, their connections, their friend circle, their culture, everything, and come to a new country and start from scratch and build everything from scratch. And I must say that your story is one of the immigration success story. How you started as a junior level in the company, and now working as a head of Strategy.

Now that’s also I’m very curious to learn is what is your role at Hitachi right now as a Head of Strategy, what you need to do, what is your day look like?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:09:00]):

Okay. Yes. being the Head of a Strategy is a lot of things because a strategy means a lot of things. But I’m not dealing, for example, with a strategic part of the operation side. So someone is developing this. I’m only supporting with the direction. So is my role to understand if something that we would like to invest or as a new line of business or as something that has to be used as a part of the core business is a, something that will grow in the future, deliver by business and it’ll profitable. So is my role to give this kind of assurance to the company. Secondly, we are part of a big conglomerated that is a touch group. So is my role to support also the officer that is the one that has the responsibility among the collaborations with Hitachi group to be sure that we are collaborating correctly with the other members of Hitachi. And also we are basically leading all the activities correctly. Because you can imagine how, how difficult is in a company of 300,000 people that is Hitachi and 12,000, that is a Hitachi rail to understand what is doing each other and how to leverage all these competencies to make it grow. So is my part to support this kind of a strategy or collaboration in order to succeed to in collaboration as one touch. The other point also as part of my responsibility is the collaboration with the startups

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:10:49]):

Is very important to reduce the time to market. Okay, we can have innovative ideas. We are investing a lot in new technologies, but it is not like you have to develop everything from zero. Yeah. If there are already some startups that have these kinds of capabilities. So is my role also to identify this kind of a startups and support and select the current one to collaborate and make them or key partner for taking the product in a short time. So to reduce the time to mark, I would say these are the main three. There are many other activities, but I would say that with this you can have a big overview. What is my daily, daily basis job, you know?

Jaspal Singh ([00:11:41]):

Yeah. It’s, it sounds quite a lot of work managing lot of new development and making sure it’s profitable. Then working with startup to reduce go to market for the company. And like you mentioned, in a company of 300,000 people, it’s very difficult to know what’s happening there. So bringing everybody everything together at one place is a challenge.

And in fact, that’s I’m curious to learn because managing innovation in a big company is a problem, but the culture also play a big role. And I would say you are a perfect example. You are born in Latin America, so you know, Latin American culture, but then you work in Italy. So you know, European culture, but now you’re working for a Japanese company. So you have a perspective about Japanese culture and what we have seen that in a corporate innovation space it’s, it’s very challenging to convince your management how to promote and accept innovation.

Jaspal Singh ([00:12:37]):

And you have worked under two different management and corporate culture. You work in Italian company, and now you’re working in a Japanese company in the last one decade. And what I love about Japan, because Japan always believe in, in a Kaisen theory, which is improvement in pursuit of perfection. They never look for they always look for improving what they have achieved. And in Italy, we tend to look for perfection. So we always want to have something very perfect before serving. Would love to know your perspective on corporate innovation in different culture, because you are lucky enough to work in a two different setup. And also, what are the key challenges faced by the corporate innovator based on the culture you’re working with?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:13:21]):

Yeah. About this. The, I think we can speak by hour, you know, because there is a lot to talk. First of all, the key point is that a big challenge for doing innovation is change management, you know?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:13:38]):

Because you basically need to understand how to change your company even from the point of your process, because the new technologies are totally different as what they use to have and what they used to produce. So you will be in new competencies, you will in new process and so on. And how to make, accept these to the managers is also very challenging then about the culture, right? Because also this impact a lot, eh, But the culture, I will say that the important point is that you have a clear idea what you would like to do. You drive by business, so you present correct your business case and your business plan. And then the key role could be Italian, could be English, could be Japanese, could be any kind of culture is communication. You need to understand a basic on what are the targets, how to present all this information to them. Because the same business case that could be attractive for an Italian maybe could not be attractive for Japanese. I noticed because the content is wrong. Is because the way that you are communicating to them. So I will say that the communicating the idea,if everything is done correctly, then the last effort that is not so small’s understand how to communicate.

Jaspal Singh ([00:15:14]):

Yeah.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:15:15]):

And obviously in that case, you need the support from your local colleagues to understand how to address corrected the message. Because believe me, even if I work it since a lot of years with any kind of culture, because fortunately that I am Latino American migrant and so on. The company allowed me to work internationally with different environments. I understand the cultures, but at the same time, you need support locally because always, the communications is totally different.

Jaspal Singh ([00:15:50]):

Now these, I must say it like you have actually concise years of knowledge in five minutes. And I really love your point about like, innovation is nothing but change management. So if you’re not ready to accept the change, innovation can never happen. And, and I think that’s a crux of the matter because a lot of augmentation fail with innovation because they don’t have a change management plan. And communication is very important. It’s whether you’re communicating to external stakeholder or internal stakeholder, if you fail in communication, even if you have best of the product, it’ll never work. So how to communicate, how to convince people. It’s very important. And working in a different culture, you understand in some culture, the values matter more in some culture, like American culture is more about money, how much money you’ll make. I live in Canada. So in Canada it’s more about the values and how it will bring some social aspects. So you have to.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:16:47]):

And I will say that I just remember the something that impacting innovation, and in a strategy, you need to be good also to do synthesis, because otherwise you present something to people that even if you have the good contents, but it’s too much that they don’t understand. So it’s always communication, Right. But synthesis is also key for this. You know, analysis and synthesis is something that that you really need to do is a big challenge. And not, not many people can do this, you know?

Jaspal Singh ([00:17:18]):

Yeah. I think life is all about communication these days. How you communicate, even you are best of the person, but if you can’t know how to communicate, people will never understand you. Now, another important point, which you earlier mentioned about that it’s a big company, so he thought he is with 300,000 people. And it’s, it’s very, like a lot of these people are working on ground.

So Hitachi introduced this idea sourcing platform, which is called “Hinnova”. And I really like it because it’s basically an idea to crowdsource different ideas from employees and collect idea from everyone in organization, because a lot of time you hear only the top voices and you don’t hear the people who are on the ground. Can you share more about this initiative? And what I would love to know more is also any project which emerged from this platform, like any project you want to share and say, this project, you know, actually came from this platform.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:18:17]):

So about this project, this one, two years ago from the area of innovation with very interesting concept, because like you said, we have a 12,000 people because was launched Hinnova. We have 12,000 people. We continue to do innovation, research and development and so on. But are we considering all the ideas that can come from these 12,000 people, is not maybe that there are ideas that we, that they can contribute, can maybe become produce a new line of business, and we are excluding. So this was basically the idea from the Chief Innovation Officer of that time that came to his mind and say, Let’s propose this to the company. And we implemented, because I supported this. In implementation, we collected many ideas. And yes, I would say there are obviously, you know, the company is not like, have a, a lot of money to invest in anything, right?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:19:26]):

Because also from that point of view, you need to do a correct business case if you would like to do something that you really need to invest a lot of money. But obviously we did the sort selection base on something that doesn’t need so big amount of money, but basically it’s a quick win so we can see our return investment, even if its small implementation, then we selected the ideas. I will say, yeah, that could be something big and that we ask it support for doing a business case. And that is another story that obviously there are some seekers that I cannot share in this process.

Jaspal Singh ([00:20:10]):

I know, I agree

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:20:11]):

But I will say that about the ideas, they were very interesting ideas about the intelligent maintenance that was a quick win using artificial intelligence and machine learning so that we can apply because, and this came because you think about, I’m speaking about two years ago, right? And two years ago, we were in Covid period.

Jaspal Singh ([00:20:35]):

Yeah.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:20:37]):

So many ideas came to how to solve and in order to support remote maintenance activities. And now we have a lot of technologies that are going around that are been using automotive, aviation in many environments. But very few applied in rail. So what we say, what we don’t apply this to rail and I can talk about you that this is one example is the how apply leses, right?

Jaspal Singh ([00:21:08]):

Hmm.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:21:10]):

So basically these lenses that you remotely can support maintainers to maintain the different assets being you, the technical expert in any part of the world. So you don’t have to travel there. Yeah. This same time, they say that save cost and also basically the technology can support you to teach yourself how to do everything by yourself. You know? So this is this is one idea that can share. There are other ideas that maybe I prefer to take, to take care not to share at the moment, but maybe in the future or touch away page, you know?

Jaspal Singh ([00:21:51]):

Yeah. Well, that’s, I agree. I agree with you and fully respect that because you work so hard to collect those ideas, and it has some proprietary advantage. But I agree with you this Hulu lens and with artificial intelligence and augmented reality it’s becoming like a big area which can help the transit sector and transportation sector, like rail maintenance. And now people are talking about remote driving. So there are a lot of these things will come with the communication.

Now, shifting a gear a bit because I want to learn from your experience in the real sector and we already discuss why rail sector is slow in adopting, but at the same time, there are a lot of technology development are happening in the rail sector. And Hitachi rail, I would say is doing a lot of interesting work and designing new reproductive.

Jaspal Singh ([00:22:41]):

One thing you mentioned earlier that rail sector has to develop a lot of civil infrastructure and that take a lot of time. And one of the key objectives for Hitachi rail is now how to make it zero infrastructure, how to reduce physical assets like signals, and reduce certain stuff so that your development can be much faster. And second area is about autonomous trains, like you mentioned, how to run these strain independently, because then your operation can be 24 X 7. Zero infrastructure and autonomous rail projects, which you’re doing at Hitachi, and how the rail, or I would say the rolling stock of the future will be different from the past? How you feel the train, which we are seeing today will be very different incoming? Incoming generation from what we are seeing today?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:23:36]):

So these are very two interesting questions in area of innovation, right? About zero infrastructure, our idea is to reduce as much as possible the assets along the line in order to do two things. First, reduction of cost because you can imagine if you reduce assets means cables means power supply, means a lot of cost from the point of view of the customer that they can save. And secondly, time to implement.  Because we were speaking about this big time of implementation that it takes rail. So this can be a big support in order to reduce this time of implementation. And our idea is basically, for example, now for the interlocking, you can imagine that interlocking at the moment you need physical racks. You need to connect to the field device controllers.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:24:35]):

So you need also some racks along the line to manage the wayside equipment that can be switched machines, that can be level crossings, that can be any other equipment. And all this is physical. You need long cables, expensive cables, installation of all these materials. And you can imagine also the power supply consumption. So the idea is to move everything, all this kind of, because if you think about this, everything software, right now we have cloud technology. So the idea is to move everything to cloud, obviously, like we said before, is very important to take in consideration the safety. We have safety integrity levels in railway environment for signaling. So we are taking care in making this kind of technology on cloud so that for sure we are not in trouble, but that is basically what in infrastructure is Hitachi working on, in reducing the assets.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:25:42]):

But not only because if you think about is not like you can remove everything, because in any case, the training still will run through the rails and need to switch. So switch machines would not disappear. Sometimes even you would like to eliminate as much as possible level crossings. You have to install them, so for sure they will survive at the same time. So the idea in the area of infrastructure is also to understand how to power all this kind of equipment with alternative power supply. That could be solar, that could be batteries, that could be as smart grids, you know? So this also in order to reduce the cost, because you can imagine if you do everything also from the point of view, sustainability, right? Yeah. You can reduce cost, but also you can reduce the emission because it’s true that basically you are using electricity, but who knows from where electricity comes from, right?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:26:43]):

So indirectly but yes, we are thinking about this infrastructure synthesis about autonomous strain is another, another point as, you know, autonomous train that really exist in a lot of years from the point of view of metro. So that is not in discussion, but at the same time, even if we have already autonomous trains in the train environment, there is a lot of stuff that you can do to improve. The solution from the point of view of the CBTC. So what I see in the future is that we will leverage in the new telecommunications, in the innovation or telecommunications from the point of view, in order to support the these diverse activities to also reduce the cost to the operators. We will rely in new technologies for train positioning in order also to reduce the time to implementation and also to leverage, maybe use the same technologies for telecommunications. So this from the point of view, the, the CBTC from the point of view, mainline ATC, what I can see is that you know there are a norms, there are standards that are coming out, and you can see that the main standard that we have in Europe is ATC level three.

Jaspal Singh ([00:28:03]):

Okay

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:28:04]):

All the industries are working for make it happening And I will say that if we compare the actual train with the future train for sure you need a IOT technology. And if that will be autonomous, you for sure need a reliable obstacle detection system, right? Because that is absolutely necessary. You will need also on more intelligent onboard equipment that will do many things and among need also energy efficiency. And from the other point, also telecommunication. So let’s see if 5G will be really at that time. And so it’s possible to leverage in the 5G for railways, because that is being discussed at the moment. So there is a lot that is happening at the moment in industry and the point of view innovation, autonomous train infrastructure. And I will say that Hitachi is investing a lot in all these areas to be the leader in this kind of technology.

Jaspal Singh ([00:29:13]):

Great. Thanks for sharing this point. And I really love what you describe how these technologies will be changing the future of this rolling stock. And they will be connected. Everything will be connected to cloud and all. And also I love your point about making these infrastructure independent. So removing dependence on external power, so setting up a small solar station or solar power near to the, where the electricity consumption is required. So you don’t need a long cable to do it, and the infrastructure can be managed locally and sustainably. So the train will be like a fully green train, not like supported by electricity, which is coming from coal. It’s, it’s important to use technology and innovation to make it possible.

Jaspal Singh ([00:30:06]):

One of the key challenges faced by rail operator is an asset life strategy and I mentioned in the beginning the life of hardware is more than 25 and 30 years these days, but the things are changing is much faster way. And the key challenge operators face is obsoletion of these equipment and spare part became obsolete. And the availability, if you have a first-generation train, which is 30-year-old or 20 years old, the problem is most of these parts are not available in the market.

Second is the system integration became an issue because if you have a different kind of a rolling stock, different generation of rolling stock, how to integrate with your planning and other application. But the, but another biggest challenge is the human resource, lack of skill for all technology. For example, if I try to hire a Unix developer today, I can’t find it because everybody’s learning Java and ASP and other kind of languages or Python, even ASP is old. So everybody’s learning Python. So sometime finding people who have those skill to manageable technologies is not available.

Now, my question to you is, because you are working in this area, and you must be struggling with these challenges, how do you think operator can overcome these challenges? And does it make your job more difficult or easier? Like you mentioned now everything is becoming more and more connected with software and less reliance on the hardware. So is your job is becoming more easier or difficult with the changing time?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:31:34]):

I want not say easier or difficult? I would say it is challenging every time, because you need to, you know, company that don’t innovate, that don’t invest in R&D once you buy. So in any case, you have to continue to invest every time, and that means that your life will be challenging. But I won’t call easy or difficult because challenge for some people could be easier and for another people could be difficult, right?

Jaspal Singh ([00:32:07]):

It’s a new reality.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:32:08]):

But this is the way that it is, you know. And yes, operators, I will say the way of the life, you know, everything sometime will become obsolete. So it’s something that we can do nothing. What we can do for sure is a time by time that the technology is evolving, try to develop platforms that are the most standard and more scalable as possible in order that can integrate as much as possible. What is available in the market, of course in today the technology which is 50 or 40 years old you can do limited stuff because you need to digitalize the technology, right? In any case, for integrating anything you need to digitalize that is why obviously also companies like us Hitachi Rail are investing in knowledge and understanding how to put IoT sensors on top of different technology in order to be able to collect data.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:33:24]):

But the key point is, say you need absolutely platforms that has to be flexible, standard in any kind of environment. And the second point that you need to be able to manage the data. So in the last years, and I will say Hitachi Rail from the point of view of Lumada Intelligent Mobility Management, because, you know, the all Lumda concept is how to create value from the data. And secondly, our mission as social innovation, the company invested a lot in digitalization. So we are ready with the digital platforms in order to collect data and to manage the data correctly. Our platform is also a standard, is independent from the technology. So it is agnostic from the point of view of what the hardware has been used. So we can integrate anything. And or value added is that we are able to manage that. So I will say that to simplify your question, it is will be always challenging, you know, easier or difficult. But important point is that companies have to be able to offer something that is standard and scalable, that the customer can benefit as much as possible from actual and core solutions.

Jaspal Singh ([00:34:50]):

Yeah, I think rightly mentioned, you have to keep learning new thing. You cannot say that we don’t want to learn. In fact, I was talking with couple of operators and they are exploiting use case of blockchain, and they know they cannot implement it something right away. But at the same time, they have to learn whether there is any use case available or not. And data will play a key role to understand what’s happening today and what will happen tomorrow. So you have to not only collect the data, but also analyze that. And also your decision making should be driven by data, not by anything else, and the job of operator, like as an industry, the job is difficult. The job of operator is also becoming more and more difficult because you need to always remain ahead of the trend.

Jaspal Singh ([00:35:37]):

You cannot just follow all the time. You have to now build and learn about new technology, which is coming up in the future. And I think that’s a way the co-creation and collaboration will happen because now authorities are not just issuing tender, but they are working with the industry to create new kind of stuff. So, thank for sharing that. I can now imagine your life is more challenging, not easy or not difficult.

Now my next question is about what you mentioned about the end customers. And I feel the end customers are the passenger and any technology which we’re implementing should help those passengers. And in last two decade, we have seen the transit companies are implementing new technology to make the passenger journey more comfortable, whether it’s a use of artificial intelligence or internet of train or big data, data analytics or augmented reality.

Jaspal Singh ([00:36:35]):

Just like you, these are some of the key areas where they are investing to bring efficiency for operation, for maintenance, and also to improve the customer experience. And all, there are so many, these buzzwords are in the market. What I want to learn from you is which technology are more bullish on and how they are reshaping the real sector. Do you feel that the AI has more role to play? or is the big analytics or big data analytics, what are the technology you feel is very important right now for the rail sector?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:37:14]):

So I would say that all the new generation technologies are very important for the rail sector. So we can see the race of cloud computing very important. Artificial intelligence, very important. Machine learning, very important, augmented reality, very important. All the last generation technologies, the evolution of these tools that we are having now in the market are very important for railway environment. As for any other kind of industry, I would say. And what I’m saying that you, you started your question with the final customers, right? That are the passengers, how we can support them. I would say that we don’t have to forget, yes public transport is made to make passengers travel. And it should be in an easier way, in a seamless way, in a simple way.

Jaspal Singh ([00:38:11]):

Yes

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:38:12]):

To use the public transport. But there’s remember also that we have to give instruments to the operators to make that happen. So then you have two different customers. You have the operators and you have the passengers. So from that point of view Hitachi Rail, from what is our Lumada Intelligent Mobility Management suite modern intelligent mobility management suite, we created different platforms in order to support and 360 degrees or customers that are passengers and operators from these, maybe you are already hear a lot too much about Mobility as a Service (MaaS). So mobility as a service is an instrument that is supporting the passengers to travel in a smooth way. We are applying innovation to mobility as a service in order to do even seamless this kind of application. And in order to attract more passengers to use public transport in order to reduce emission, reduce the traffic from the point of view of the road perspective, because this is our role of rail or social innovation mission, right?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:39:27]):

But at the same time, from the operator point of view, you can imagine you continues to have passengers, but you need an instrument. In order to manage correct your public transport based on the demand. So at the same time, we have another platform that is correlated to collect all the data that is available from the point of view of the automation systems from the public transport. We collect this data, correlate this data, apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, and predict and give a value-added services to our operator in order that they can efficient the activities along the public transport. So we are acting in these two ways. And from all Luma mobility with the range of products, we are applying all the innovative solutions that we can retrieve in the market. And also the tools that could be cloud computing, artificial intelligence. So you can see everything is important, and the main scope is to give benefits to passengers and operators.

Jaspal Singh ([00:40:42]):

Yeah, I agree with you. All the technologies are connecting with each other so much. Now, you cannot say that, okay, I’m just looking at the cloud computing and I’m not interested right now for the big data or data analytics because it’s all interlink and you can achieve the full potential when you integrate different technology, how to use your AI and ML with your passengers data collection, how you can make the data collection much more smarter and how you can make better decision using big data. So I agree with you and thank you for sharing that that how you’re using it. One of the key challenges also operator faces the maintenance and rolling stock in the real sector especially, it’s, it’s a very expensive component. Until now, most of these agencies were follow the time-based maintenance approach, which was prescribed by the operator, telling them when you need to do the maintenance and other maintenance stuff.

Jaspal Singh ([00:41:39]):

But with technology, now what is possible is this CBM (condition base maintenance). Now, you don’t need to check your wheel after every 20,000 kilometers or 30,000 kilometers. You have sensor install, and that sensor can tell you when the device need maintenance. So basically, we are shifting from periodic to predictive. How do you think this condition-based maintenance concept is evolving and how technology is making it much easier for operator to implement it? And I can assume there is a lot of role play by the IoT and AI in this. how you see the future will be?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:42:18]):

So what I can see is that obviously without a IoT sensor or technology, artificial intelligence that allow us to elaborate the data, we won’t be speaking about this kind of benefits, right? So, and what I can see, what will happen in the future is because if you think about what you were speaking about is how this started, you have a, you have first the large generation maybe trains or signaling equipment that are really digital Yeah. Can send data, but basically customers were doing nothing with that data, right? Then you have the old generation that we were speaking before. So very often technologies, but you need to collect data, how to collect data, you need IOT sensors. So let’s say that we have already the data, we installing the old generation, the technologies, IOT sensors, and in the new ones you already have the digital data.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:43:14]):

So what is happening now, how this started, you have a platform that collect all this data and analyze this data, and it started with improving the maintenance cycles. So if you have to basically maintain something every three months with this kind of data analyzing, when really it got wasted, it was working, you can understand that maybe it’s not three months that you need this four months, right? But this is honestly something, is something that improving my internet cycles. Then the next step is, okay, we have all this data, we have our artificial intelligence, while we don’t predict. So at the moment we as Hitachi Rail also doing this, we are predicting for some components that basically what you can do with digitalization is to predict when the component will really get broke or basically to maintain in advance, in order to not allow the, to block, you know, because it’s even is even better, right?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:44:20]):

If you can avoid having a component broken. And then you will have maybe a train stop for a month because you’re waiting to repair or, or you have interruption on the line in the middle of the country and you have a lot of disruption that cause a lot of money to the operator, right? So another important point is not only to predict that when it will be get broke, but also to avoid, to maintain correctly when it is necessary to be maintained in order to enlarge the life of the component. Then the last point will be prescriptive maintenance.

Jaspal Singh ([00:45:01]):

Yeah.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:45:01]):

And this is something that we are working on and now at the moment, because we have at the moment the predictive, the future is the prescriptive. So basically understand really what will happen with your component. But in 260 degrees, not only predict, but have a life cycle basically. For sure. I know that this will, will get blocking in 10 years, but you should maintain in this way. You know, given that we are collecting data you could basically a update the maintenace information on your component based on artificial intelligence and continues to understand what will happen with that component. So at the moment, what I see the future is prescriptive. Everything will be prescriptive mind.

Jaspal Singh ([00:45:48]):

That’s amazing. So basically you’re saying from preventive will go to predictive and predictive. We are now going to prescriptive and, and idea is not only tell them when it will fail, but also educate or or help operator to extend the life of that component by performing a set in a better way. So whether it’s improving certain track, so if your track is better, probably your wheel will have a better life. And if you want to extend the life of wheel, probably you need to, don’t worry about the wheel, but you should worry about some other component which in track with the wheel

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:46:27]):

And, you’re including another very Important point of, because, what we can see in the future is also data correlation because you are concentrated too much in only one single component. What will happen in that component, but you should correlate with other data. You need to understand, which is the other data that is important to correlate in order to layer the life or your component. And you remember me that because yes, information from the rails, if the rail and the wheel are not correctly profiled, that impacts all the components of the, of the installed, you know? So yes, that is another important point, correlation of that. Of course.

Jaspal Singh ([00:47:13]):

Yeah. That term is not popular yet, prescriptive maintenance. But I think after this episode, people will now know that it’s not predictive anymore. It’s about prescriptive. And how to make it much more better. That’s great. Thank you so much for sharing something new because I learned it today. I never knew about this, so thanks for sharing that and putting it putting it on the show.

Now, Hitachi Rail has a lot of experience in managing real infrastructure, electrical equipment’s, and electricity cables and wiring. And at the same time we are seeing a lot of adoption of electric buses. A lot of operators are now implementing electric buses, introducing electric bus fleet. And to introduce electric fleet, they have to create this kind of infrastructure at the depot as well as they have to understand this how this electric power train work. And the important point, which you mentioned earlier, is the change management. You need to have new skills, You have to have new processes to manage these kind of stuff. I’m very curious to know like how Hitachi Rail is leveraging its experience in the rail sector and translating into the road sector. Is Hitachi Rail is looking to become Hitachi Electric Bus company in future, or a big player in that space?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:48:37]):

So I will say yes and no because we for sure are trying to enlarge our portfolio in order to allow multi-modality. And in the past we were very active in the rail environment, so now, tomorrow we will be also active in the bus environment. In the area of electric Buse explicitly because we are more interested in how to give a social innovation support to our customers. So the electric bus component is very important from that point of view in order to reduce pollution and because of the carbonization and sustainability. So yes, we are entering that market, but obviously we won’t be at the moment, I don’t see touchy playing, and there’s any other business unit will do that, but building electric buses, right? We will continue to support this in the area that we are investing in doing traffic management system for electric buses.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:49:44]):

Leveraging our experience in trains. Because you can imagine how complex is to manage the traffic for trains. So we would like to use this in a simple way, obviously, because you cannot make complex instead the bus environment, you have to make it simple, but leverage our experience of rail and at the same time, understanding all the electronic components in order to make sure that you, that all bus operators can have an efficient planning and a schedule, because that is at the moment what is missing, right? That you have a traditional traffic management system for buses that are diesel or fuel cell buses. In any case, they have this kind of information from tracking, planning and scheduling, but the actual solutions are not able to manage electric component. Like you said, you have electric chargers in the depot and you need as operator to plan correctly the roots of the buses.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:50:50]):

You need to understand how to plan the charging, how many charging systems are available and what time when, how many buses I can charge today and so on. And at the same time, I need to understand how much a battery my bus has still available, right? Because, if I would like to send a bus on a route it has to be sure, you have to be sure that it will complete a route, right? It’s not like you can stop in the middle. And to understand the life that the battery is very tricky because you need to collect a lot of information from the battery point of view – battery management. So you need to integrate information from the battery management and also from the charging systems inside the traffic management system in order to efficiently manage the planning and the scheduling. But this has to be dynamically.

Jaspal Singh ([00:51:49]):

Yeah.

 

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:51:50]):

How to add the dynamic part is something that touch is contributing now with our customers. And you will say that why other companies cannot do that. We are doing this because we are part of group and we have Hitachi Energy, it touches the energy is a supplier of a charging system and a smart charging component. So we are basically quite integrating this data management. You see there is always a component of data management, right? So, that is basically what we are doing in the area of electric buses.

Jaspal Singh ([00:52:29]):

I can imagine that leveraging your experience in rail life and managing rail infrastructure is so complex and the same challenge they will face in electric bus in future, like lot of operators think that is just replacing a set from diesel buses to electric. But I feel it’s not only the hardware, but there are a lot of things in the background. Like you rightly mentioned about, not only the charging, but also the battery behavior. So let’s say you charge a bus fully 100% but it’s not necessary. It’ll complete the same route which other buses are doing. So you have to understand the battery behavior. Your BMS has to be linked with your charging infrastructure, and then ultimately it has to link with your planning and scheduling and also the impact of driver behavior and the route topography / geography, whether there is gradient, it’s a high grade or low grade, so it has a lot of impact.

Jaspal Singh ([00:53:23]):

So thanks for sharing that. And I feel a lot of value combining the knowledge from energy and rail to this new segment of buses. Now we are at our last question, and I promise this is my last question because thank you for your generous time, but I can’t end our conversation without asking you about Hitachi rail Mobility as a Service (MaaS) app, because you mentioned briefly about that, and this is one of the key pillars for Hitachi Rail as a strategy, which is service for mobility. Hitachi launch a pilot in the city of Genoa, you mentioned about the 360Pass, which is using artificial intelligence and Bluetooth sensor to connect public transport in the city and work with the local partners. So you have this fully integrated system. Can you share a little more detail about this 360Pass and what is big vision here? Like what Hitachi want to create in the future?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:54:22]):

Okay, so like I say, basically about digitalization in railway, you have to cover two areas, Operation and maintenance. Yeah, about maintenance. We are already covering a lot of areas and we already have an intelligence asset management system for both signaling and rolling stock. So that part of digitalization has been covered, but what about the operators? In indirectly also, what about the passengers? Because like we said before, right, our main customers are bus passengers and operators. So how to target both. So based on that, we created Lumada Intelligent Mobility Management. And in this kind of Lumda intelligent mobility suite range of products, we have different products. We have what is 360 plus?

Jaspal Singh ([00:55:19]):

Yeah.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:55:19]):

That is basically the solution that we are implementing for a smart ticketing that also is enabling mobility as a service in order to give an instrument to the passengers to be more attracted to public transport. And what is the difference? What is all differentiator from the point of view? The competitors that we are investing in a solution, and we are and that’s what basically we implement MaaS that is totally seamless. So we installed BLE beacons at the stations and in vehicles, and basically what you need to do is download an app application, activate the Bluetooth, put in your pocket, you don’t have to check in checkout. So basically, automatically the mobile app communicates with the beacon and understand that you are taking the public transport. So basically then is up to the operator to share the best fare policy that they would like to use to acquire more people.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:56:24]):

But here the idea is that you won’t be charged for basically, like you buy a bus ticket for $100, right? You will be charged basically on how much you use the public transport. That could be per day, per week, per month. And so basically you won’t have not only the part that is a single solution that the customer will say, I finally, I don’t have to be worried about where to buy the ticket, checking check out and so on. But also, the operator is charging me the best fair rate, so I’m happy to use the public transport. So this from the point of view of 360Pass. So what is the vision now from Hitachi? So this, you are giving for the passengers, then we have 360 Motion. So 360 Motion is the platform instead that collect any kind of data, corelated data and provide value services for both operator and passengers.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:57:25]):

So what we are doing with the data of the 360Pass, that is also another point that we are doing in general. You know, you have the beacons information. So basically and everything, everything compliant with GDPR. Now, this has to be very important topline, because we are not keeping the information about who is really traveling for us but as an next person going from A to B location. So basically, the allows us to collect this data. We are collecting this data from the 360 Motion platform, and we are able to understand the origin destination metrics, and we are giving insights to our operators about which is the most congested station, which is the most path to travel. And so this is something that we are doing about general, but what is next now, because I think you are also interested what is next is to collect more information.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([00:58:33]):

They can assist congestion management, like I said, the system is agnostic also from the point of view of the sensors. So we can collect any kind of data. So what is the idea? To collect information also from congestion monitoring to collect information also from the point of view of the timetable and correlate all this data. We are already talking with different customers, and we are implementing this in order to basically adapt the timetable base on the real demand. This could be interesting from two points of view.

Interesting because for the first point, if it’s possible we can optimize operations, right? And think about that you can optimize only one or 2% is a huge amount of investment if you reduce one run of the train, because you can imagine how much energy consumes to run of the train. So that allows you to recover quickly, investment of this platform. The second point is, okay, I don’t like to optimize operations from the point of view, reducing the number of runs, but you at the same time cannot optimize the operations from the point of view that you have the same runs, but distributed in different times of the day in order to offer a better public transport to the passengers, giving them a better passenger experience.

 

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:05]):

Yeah.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:00:06]):

So we would like to concentrate all the strategies to concentrate in the public transport environment in the 360 degrees, offering from the digital point of view, not only benefits from the maintenance point of view because we already did that, but now also concentrated in the operations point of view.

Jaspal Singh ([01:00:27]):

And that’s why you call it 360, because you’re covering the full life cycle of any transit network or bus system. So it’s not only the maintenance, but also the operation and also real delivery to the customers. So you are covering now full life cycle now. Thanks for sharing that. I fully agree with you, the data play a very important role. You need to know when your customer travel, where they travel and how they travel, because then you can customize and, and people are looking for more and more personalized service. Sometimes it’s difficult to provide personalized, but with the data, you can at least customize a little bit, make it faster, whether you should run express route or whether you should run shorter turnaround, whether you should have a more frequent service during peak hours or less service during different time of the day.

Jaspal Singh ([01:01:20]):

So that’s important. So thank for sharing that. And I see a couple of cases in the past where they use that. I remember, you know, there is a ring road service our operator was operating and there was a clockwise service and anti-clockwise service. But when they saw that data, they found, like in morning people travel clockwise and very few people travel anticlockwise. And in the, in the evening it was reverse. So more people travel anti-clockwise more, and less people travel clockwise. So you have to run more buses in a different time. So I agree with you how with the data you can do that.

So thank you Wellington, we discuss about transit, we discuss about technology, we discuss about the latest mobility trends, but now it’s time to learn a little bit more about you. And for that we have this rapid-fire question round. I’ll ask you five questions and you need to answer them quickly. So if you’re ready, then I will start.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:02:18]):

Okay, perfect. Go ahead.

Jaspal Singh ([01:02:20]):

So my first question is if you were not in mobility or technology space, what other profession you would’ve selected?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:02:29]):

Economics.

Jaspal Singh ([01:02:30]):

Economics?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:02:30]):

Yes. Economics. My idea when I joined university was basically to do administration, business administration, you know, and then basically for different factors, I decide to do telecommunication engineering, but now I’m doing I think a strategy for that reason because I need to analyze a lot of numbers, you know, So, because I am a very attractive with that, I would say that if non mobility, I will go, I will be maybe working for a bank.

Jaspal Singh ([01:03:02]):

I think what you said, you are already doing that with strategy. You are doing that business case. You’re crunching the number you’re seeing in the beginning. I remember you mentioned about the profitability of any idea. So you’re not just looking at the innovation side, but you’re also looking at the profitability and sustainability of that idea. So as an economist, you wear your economics hat and do that.

Now you travel around the world, like you raise and born in Latin America, move to Europe, and with your job, you must be traveling around the world a lot. And so my next question in which is your favorite city in the world?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:03:39]):

I have many. That’s a Problem.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:03:42]):

You know, you for sure will never forget your own city. So for me, for example, my born city Quito, the capital of Ecuador is my favorite for sure. But at the same time, traveling, like you say, traveling around the world, you start to like other cities. So for sure there are other cities, and I would say Genoa also here, I like also Genoa. So yeah, I have many

Jaspal Singh ([01:04:15]):

I think for Genoa, the best thing is also you get the best pizza in the world.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:04:23]):

For sure.

Jaspal Singh ([01:04:26]):

Now so you work in a transit space, so I’m pretty sure whenever you visit a new city or any city you’re visiting, you always testing the transit network there and using the public transport there. So my next question is, which city has the best transit network in the world?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:04:45]):

So I would say that I won’t say only one because for sure when I was traveling in this field, one that in present to me was Madrid. I think Madrid has a very good public transport. But lastly, traveling other cities, I will say that I got impressed also with Vienna, for example.

Jaspal Singh ([01:05:08]):

Yeah

 

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:05:10]):

I think Vienna has also a very good public transport. And then I will say depending also because you know, it depends also how big is the city. But in bigger cities, sometimes, they operate. But in case the municipalities try to do a lot for the city, put a lot of networks, but considering that it’s so big, maybe you cannot realize that they have a very good public transplant. Also, it, it also depends, but I would say that the best situations are Madrid and Vienna. There are others that also in your side, I would say in Canada, I amazed about the public transport in Toronto because it was very easy to travel around Toronto. And I would say that like that maybe there, there are some other examples.

Jaspal Singh ([01:06:13]):

I think all three cities has amazing system. Vienna, I traveled myself. In Toronto, I live, so I know. But Madrid, we have a good friend Kuan who is a Chief Technology Officer at EMD Madrid. So he’ll be very happy with this answer.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:06:27]):

Yeah.

Jaspal Singh ([01:06:27]):

Now, as part of your job, you meet a lot of startups and, and you mentioned that you, your part of your role is to collaborate with startup. So my next question is, which is your favorite startup in the mobility sector?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:06:40]):

Given that I work with them, I cannot say make one favorite, you know, because otherwise. I will say that, it is tricky because you collaborate and obviously you have a good startups in different sectors. So even how to say who is best is a little tricky because you have also to characterize based on the sector, right? But I would say there are many startups that very good depending on the sector, obviously I cannot do names. Sorry.

Jaspal Singh ([01:07:14]):

No, I, I can imagine it’s difficult to pick one kid out of all of them. So it’s difficult to pick your favorite kid. So same thing, it’s difficult to pick your favorite startup because you work with them. My last question is, if you can change one thing in life, what would it be?

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:07:35]):

One thing in life, I say I will change the point that basically make now the city so polluted.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:07:48]):

So try to understand what I have to eliminate in the city, that is creating a lot of contamination, you know? So for sure, I will put a lot of public transport along the main cities, and to make it easier to be used. So we have a also even less private cars, because I will say that now, with climate change, world is suffering a lot. And is everything because of pollution, you know, pollution that we were not able to take care since the beginning and plan correctly, how to reduce the contamination. So I will change that issue.

Jaspal Singh ([01:08:35]):

Well, that’s a great thought. Because climate change is real and this summer we saw it was so hot in Europe and everywhere, and now we have a lot of storms and flooding happening all over the world. So it’s real. And that’s a great thought to change that thing from the world. Thank you so much, Wellington for your great insight. I really love a lot of new things, like you mentioned prescriptive maintenance. I never thought about that area, so thanks for sharing that.

Wellington TOAPANTA ([01:09:01]):

Thank you to your best part for your time.

Jaspal Singh ([01:09:03]):

Thank you. I wish you good luck.