There have been a spate of deadly train derailments including two in the summer (one in Spain and one in Canada) most recently the Metro North one. Human error played a significant role in all of these. For instance, in the New York crash it appears that the driver alert mechanism was not installed in the front car. In Spain, the train driver was texting on his phone. In Canada the brakes had not been properly applied.

This is particularly unfortunate at a time when the technology for reducing the likelihood of such accidents has come down dramatically. A combination of commodity hardware and relatively simple software could have made a meaningful difference in each case. Instead though the focus is on proprietary and very expensive systems for what is called “Positive Train Control.”

The BOM for an Android phone with GPS is a few hundred dollars at best. There are lots of wireless motes to pick from and their pricing has come way down. Trains already have emergency breaking systems and connecting to them can’t be all that hard. I would happily contribute to a prize for creating an open source system based on available components that could rapidly be deployed in train systems across the world.