Railroads have played a remarkable role historically in the world’s ability to communicate across long distances and in implementing transformative technologies that shaped societies and economies. Thus, the role of AI in freight rail is far from inconsequential, and the railroad continues to be an engine of innovation. Railroads move the materials we rely upon based on a web of complex and interconnected signals and systems. Union Pacific is using AI to simplify the complex for the teams that power its machines.
Railroads have been and continue to be at the forefront of introducing and adopting new technologies. Railroads in the U.S. and Canada created the time zone system, enabling them to communicate where and when commerce and people would arrive, and the continent adopted the time zones they codified. Needing to transmit information over long distances, railroads advanced the introduction and installation of the telegraph building a telecommunications network across the nation. Because messages needed to be precise and concise, they advanced the utilization of MORSE code and devised a system of succinct message transmission requirements a century before Twitter/ X.
Freight rail can be likened to the central nervous system of a global economy. When analysts and economists seek to understand how markets are moving – they look at what freight trains are hauling. Nearly every object you see, touch, use and move has been transported on a freight train at some point in its lifecycle. The lumber and building materials for the homes and offices we live and work in, the vehicles we drive, the energy we use for heat and fuel, the food we eat and goods we buy have all been moved by rail.
The data and analytics involved in transporting every imaginable commodity—and the significant factors that must be considered safely and responsibly— require sophisticated systems and programs. Union Pacific has taken on that responsibility in different ways. Safely securing the goods customers entrust on its system and preserving the proprietary intellectual property its employees create and maintain, Union Pacific designed its own internal version of Chat GPT called UP Chat.
It launched UP Chat more than a year ago, and its teams have used the software to synthesize large amounts of data, documents, and content to decrease the time it takes to complete administrative tasks, analyze information and feedback from large groups, including customers and employees, and help form insights more quickly, translating into greater efficiency for its people and more balance for its workforce.
Union Pacific is also using AI to inform the evolution of the technology on its tracks. Its software allows it to simulate how traffic moves across its system and identify the best route with the fewest touches and exchanges on the network. This drives greater efficiency and productivity, helping it deliver the service its customers are counting on. It also uses AI-based algorithms to inform the design and construction of trains with greater precision. These efforts are adding up to millions of hours saved and dollars earned.
AI is playing a key role in helping Union Pacific continue doing what it’s done since it was established more than 160 years ago, ensuring it remains in the driving seat of technological solutions by staying on track with the inevitability of evolution.
Clarissa Beyah is chief communications officer for Union Pacific and a professor of professional practice at USC Annenberg. Her expertise spans the professional services, healthcare, technology, transportation and utilities sectors, and she has served as a chief communication advisor for numerous Fortune 50 companies, including Pfizer. She is a member of the USC Center for PR board of advisers.