Rail Diary is a company in the process of revolutionising the rail construction industry. Working with Gather to develop a range of innovative solutions, their products are currently attracting attention from around the world.

Record keeping in an archaic industry

Whilst the projects are often very large, record keeping in the rail construction industry has fallen behind other industries in recent years with many companies relying on paper-based reporting or the use of spreadsheets to store complex project data. When workers head out onto construction sites for maintenance and planed works, it’s important for them to record an array of information relating to the type of work being undertaken and the resources being used. This is not only key for worker safety but also company reporting on projects during and after the work has been completed.

Rail Diary App Development

A technology solution

The first stage of the project has been to design and develop a data collection app and information management platform. The app, designed for field staff, allows users to enter shift information relating to workers, materials, resources and safety issues. It has been designed specifically for the rail sector so includes many industry specific terms and shortcuts. After syncing data remotely to the client space, company admin staff can monitor data collected and manage project and user level information from a web-based management platform.

The apps features include:

Offline data capture

Integrated media processing

Data validation (against industry specific terms)

Bespoke reporting

Resource/delay analysis

Real-time updates

Secure data storage

Dynamic form management

Collecting rail construction data

The app has been designed very much with the end user in mind. On a typical rail construction shift there can be a huge amount of data that’s required to be recorded. Streamlining this process was critical to avoid onerous repetition of data entry. Allowing industry specific terminology to be searchable and creating shortcuts to common elements was key to this approach.

Managing users

A number of user roles were identified during the UX discovery phase that needed to be considered. Field staff work on the lines and are responsible for initial data entry with office-based roles picking up record maintenance and proofing duties. Organisations also have the ability to manage their own staff creation and project assignment.

Reporting and analysis

The real power behind the Rail Diary platform is in its reporting abilities. The trial version of the tool which included limited output of project reporting was warmly received by companies testing the product who hailed it as a vast improvement on the current standard. Phase 2 of development will see a host of new reporting features introduced which are already eagerly anticipated.

quote

"In Gather Digital, we believe we have found an agency who are capable of delivering a high value product that will exponentially improve the current data capture and interpretation processes in the UK infrastructure market."

William Doyle Co-founder, Rail Diary

Digital development partners

We're thrilled that Rail Diary chose Gather as their digital partner to develop such an important suite of data collection tools. The applications allow construction workers to record project critical information on site in often remote locations. This is already being called a game changer in the industry. To learn more about how we can support your digital development needs, get in contact below.