Hitachi Rail to acquire Omnicom, further strengthening its digital asset management business

Hitachi Rail has agreed to acquire the cutting-edge digital rail monitoring business Omnicom from Balfour Beatty. The acquisition marks a key strategic pillar for Hitachi Rail’s new digital asset management business, known as HMAX.

Omnicom provides software and hardware for surveying, inspecting and monitoring rail infrastructure assets including its Infrastructure Monitoring System, gauge clearance measurement, line visual inspection and scanning infrastructure. Its monitoring systems can be installed on trains and uses edge computing and machine learning to provide near real-time anomaly detection on rail tracks. The technology can enhance the decision making for maintenance planning and the asset lifecycle.

With a more than 25-year track record in railway technology, Omnicom’s monitoring and geometry measurement solutions are currently deployed by a number of its largest customers. The technology collects trillions of bytes of images per day, allowing its customers to optimize their trackside maintenance.

Omnicom’s remote monitoring and measurement solutions will feed into Hitachi Rail’s new HMAX suite, enabling the pioneering technology to be brought to the global market. HMAX, launched at InnoTrans in September 2024, is a comprehensive digital asset management solution which seamlessly integrates a vast array of live data from the train and the surrounding rail infrastructure into a single platform. The platform uses AI and machine learning to process the data and extract knowledge and apply it to achieve operational and service enhancements including traffic optimization, energy consumption reduction, and an on-condition/ predictive maintenance process.

HMAX also enables huge volumes of data to be processed at the ‘edge’ (on the trains or infrastructure) in real time, with only relevant information sent back to the operational control centers. This enables an unprecedented improvement in the speed that actionable insights reach transport operators, as previously it could take days for data to be processed in maintenance locations.

Commenting on the announcement, Hitachi Rail CEO, Giuseppe Marino, said:

“This is a strategic acquisition for Hitachi Rail. Plugging Omnicom’s pioneering track monitoring tools into our digital asset management platform, will further strengthen our global offer to optimize customers’ rail services and the surrounding infrastructure. New technological solutions such as our HMAX platform demonstrate the power of AI to enhance the performance of our railway infrastructure and systems.”

Sanjay Razdan, Managing Director of Omnicom, said: “This acquisition strengthens Omnicom’s ability to collaborate, innovate and deliver AI-enabled systems and services whilst further enhancing the safety, efficiency, and reliability of rail infrastructure, building on our proven data driven solutions which help predict and prevent railway asset failures. I look forward to Omnicom’s continuing success as part of the Hitachi brand.”