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9/14/2026
Compiled by Bridget Dean, Senior Associate Editor
Kaleris Rail TMS is designed to streamline the entire intra-yard move process by connecting shippers and crews in a single, real-time workflow. Shippers can submit switching requests directly in the system — selecting cars, destinations and priorities — to eliminate waiting time associated with emails, phone calls or paper forms.
Each request becomes a digital job that’s instantly dispatched to the rail crew’s tablets, where it appears as a clear, prioritized switch list, Kaleris officials said in an email.
On the crew side, moves are completed on a rugged tablet with simple, step-by-step prompts. Crews acknowledge assignments, execute moves and confirm completion with a few taps, Kaleris officials said.
Crews can capture notes, timestamps and exceptions as they go. Kaleris Rail TMS instantly updates yard inventory and moves statuses for operations, customer service and billing, eliminating clipboards, duplicate data entry and the delays that come with radio calls and manual handoffs, company officials said.
The result is faster, safer and more accurate switching, they added. Shippers can gain transparency into where cars are and what’s moving now; crews can obtain clear instructions with fewer interruptions; and managers can receive a continuous, auditable record of activity.
Customers report reduced dwell, higher throughput, fewer misroutes and better on-time performance because the right move gets to the right crew with the right context, in real time, company officials said.
PS Technology’s Crew Management platform has run crew calling, time keeping, scheduling, HOS compliance and payroll for five of the six Class Is and several of the largest commuter railroads for decades, company officials said.
The platform powers crew management behind the largest, most complex rail networks in the country while keeping pace with legislative changes, they said. It’s the result of a platform built to handle high call volumes and intricate boards without breaking down under pressure, PS Technology officials stress.
The company offers that same foundation to short lines and regionals with CrewPro Shortline (CPSL). The software is purpose-built for smaller boards and leaner teams, but is backed by the industry knowledge and reliability that Class I operators have depended on for years, PS Technology officials said.
Across both platforms, integrations allow every crew call running through the same integrated qualification and territory-familiarity checks to catch problems before they happen. That visibility, for an industry where a single miscall can carry real safety and compliance consequences, is the premise of PS Technology, company officials said.
As railroads of every size face pressure to do more with leaner teams, PS Technology’s track record at the top of the industry is the strongest argument for what technology can do to scale business at every level, they said.
PowerView Connect brings together a cloud portal that shows live location, alerts, video and operational data in one place, company officials said. And the PowerView Suite brings real-time intelligence to yard operations across four integrated products: the event/video recorder, Detect, Sense and Connect.
Crew management comes down to one fundamental objective: getting the right crew to the right place at the right time. While that goal has remained unchanged, the complexity of achieving it continues to grow as railroads balance fluctuating traffic, staffing availability, terminal constraints, service commitments and regulatory requirements, Deswik officials said.
According to Jon Jensen, Deswik’s head of rail, many crew management systems in the North American market have changed little over the years despite the increasing demands placed on rail operations.
“After more than a decade working with crew management solutions for Class I and short-line railroads, I’ve seen how difficult it can be for railroads to balance daily operational demands with long-term workforce planning,” said Jensen. “That’s why we’ve taken a different approach. By combining advanced optimization capabilities with live operational planning, we’re helping railroads make better crew decisions in real time while also giving them the tools to plan strategically for the future.”
Deswik’s AOC capabilities enable railroads to prioritize competing planning objectives, reduce overstaffing and rapidly compare multiple crew plans, company officials said. They also support long-range strategic planning, allowing operators to evaluate future staffing, traffic and service scenarios before implementing changes.
With Deswik, customers have achieved a 50% reduction in crew overtime; 8% improvement in rostered crew utilization; and rapid scenario modeling for greater operational agility, company officials said.
“These capabilities help drive operating ratios down while improving crew utilization and planning flexibility,” Jensen said. “The result is like adding a turbocharger to your legacy crew management system.”
At its core, Deswik’s approach helps railroads move beyond reactive planning and make more informed, optimized crew management decisions, company officials said.
GIRO offers HASTUS, its flagship software solution, to passenger-rail operators around the world. HASTUS is designed to provide flexibility and robustness in the face of everyday rail challenges involving vehicle and crew scheduling, GIRO officials said.
The software platform enables operators to optimize schedules and rosters for both onboard and station staff; generate more cost-effective shifts that comply with union rules, qualifications and fatigue regulations; re-optimize shifts in response to timetable changes while preserving the integrity of approved plans; and offer employees intuitive web-based tools. Employees can use it to submit shift and duty preferences, and request swaps and vacation exchanges directly from their mobile devices.
HASTUS is modular, so users can tailor solutions to their practical needs and seamlessly integrate planning, scheduling and operations management for all modes of public transport, company officials said. GIRO aims to ensure the software platform meets the dynamic needs of today’s rail industry, with a particular focus on crew management.
Passenger-rail operators currently are prioritizing regulatory compliance, such as adherence to hours of service, collective agreements and business rules, so HASTUS is designed to ensure compliance is built into every planning decision, GIRO officials said.
The software platform also targets other rail operator priorities, including staff empowerment, by providing flexible, automated work distribution that respects employees’ preferences and availability, providing staff more control and transparency. It prioritizes operational efficiency by offering tools to streamline work planning and assignment processes, and disruption management by showing impacts on staff and determining the best available solution when a situation arises, according to GIRO.
A major advantage with HASTUS: Its artificial intelligence-powered optimization and decision-support functions, GIRO officials said. Those capabilities enable operators to tackle planning challenges — such as timetabling, rolling stock management or crew assignments — with more confidence, they added.
Currently, more than 100 passenger-rail operators in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific use HASTUS to adapt to rapid changes, manage rolling stock and workforces, and improve service quality, GIRO officials said. In the United States, the platform has been deployed for passenger-rail operations at Bay Area Rapid Transit, the Chicago Transit Authority, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
MaxAccel’s SafeTrack Crew™ management application has quickly established itself as a core addition to the company’s SafeTrack™ platform, providing significant functionality and value to MaxAccel’s freight- and passenger-rail customers, company officials said.
SafeTrack Crew is designed to manage job scheduling and crew assignments, including vacancy management. The web- and mobile-based system provides common crew management functionality such as employee certification status, extra boards, transactional history, employee communications, hours-of-service compliance, job/territory qualification and payroll with claims and arbitraries. Functionality includes improved extra board management, temporary job assignment and relief job assignment.
The SafeTrack Crew Mobile™ smartphone app offers a range of benefits to train and engine employees. Real-time job and extraboard status informs employees of their upcoming work assignments along with supplemental information important to their quality of life, MaxAccel officials said.
The biggest demand in the crew management solution market, MaxAccel officials note, is for a tool with a reliable and intuitive interface that has the flexibility to respond to the dynamic railroad operations environment.
SafeTrack Crew meets this need and represents the next-generation Crew Management solution for the railroad industry — an easy to implement and easy to use, highly functional system supporting railroads large and small, company officials said. Backed by MaxAccel’s customer service, SafeTrack Crew offers an economical and streamlined crew management system, tailored to meet the needs of customers and the transportation market in general, they added.
MaxAccel is focusing on developing web-based software solutions to drive safety, regulatory compliance, operational efficiency and ROI for customers. Over 200 freight railroads, passenger operations and railroad contractors rely on MaxAccel’s suite of AssetPro™ and SafeTrack™ applications every day, company officials said.