Hitachi Rail completes acquisition of Balfour Beatty’s Omnicom solution

Hitachi Rail has completed its acquisition of Balfour Beatty’s Omnicom, a digital rail monitoring business. The acquisition aims to help grow Hitachi Rail’s digital asset management business, HMAX. 

Hitachi Rail says the Omnicom solutions will now feed into HMAX’s platform for Hitachi Rail’s customers around the world. 

“This strategic acquisition complements our existing cutting-edge proprietary technology, backed by the digital power of the Hitachi Group,” said Hitachi Rail Executive Director and CTO Koji Agatsuma. “Our HMAX platform is driving the digital transformation of rail and the addition of Omnicom’s track monitoring tools further strengthens our global offer to optimize our customer’s railway systems.” 

Omnicom offers software and hardware for surveying, inspecting and monitoring rail infrastructure assets, including the overhead line and track. The monitoring technology 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 enable the collection of trillions of bytes of images per day, allowing customers to optimize their trackside maintenance planning and the asset lifecycle. 

“From today, our technology will complement Hitachi Rail’s existing digital asset management solutions, enabling HMAX to deliver even more for customers around the world,” said Omnicom Managing Director Sanjay Razdan. “This acquisition will also enable us to benefit from the unique digital capabilities of the wider Hitachi Group, enabling us to continue to innovate and deliver [artificial intelligence] (AI)-enabled systems that can optimize the management of railway infrastructure.” 

Launched at InnoTrans in September 2024, Hitachi Rail says HMAX is a comprehensive digital asset management solution that integrates 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, extract knowledge and apply it to achieve operational and service enhancements including traffic optimization, energy consumption reduction and an on-condition/ predictive maintenance process.