Xi’an Railway Group Co., Ltd. Project for the Procurement of Deformation Monitoring Equipment for Retaining Structures

Project Background

China Railway Xi’an Bureau Group Co., Ltd. operates a large number of railway lines that traverse the Qinling Mountain region. Many of these lines were built in the 1950s and 1960s, when construction technologies were limited, resulting in routes that wind along the mountain slopes and placing significant pressure on flood control and slope monitoring. Traditional manual inspections suffer from low efficiency, numerous blind spots, and delayed responses, making it difficult to promptly detect even minor deformations in subgrade retaining walls and other structures. As flood-control challenges intensify during the rainy season, the Xi’an Bureau has accelerated the upgrade of “technology-based” safety measures within its track maintenance system. In 2025, it launched a project to install deformation-monitoring equipment for protective structures, aiming to deploy high-precision smart monitoring devices and establish an automated sensing network covering all sections of the railway. Guilin Spepc Technology, leveraging… Integrated Intelligent Sensing Technology and Large-scale deployment capability , undertook the supply of core monitoring equipment and related technical services for this project.

SPEPC Solutions and Equipment

Starting in February 2025, Spepc Technology will phase in the deployment of an automated safety monitoring system along railway lines for multiple core track maintenance sections under China Railway Xi’an Bureau Group. A total of 755 measurement and analysis instrument terminals, over 3,875 integrated tilt monitors and other sensors, and a combined total of 4,700 equipment sets will be installed. Among these:

• Integrated Tilt Monitor It integrates data acquisition, wireless communication, and battery power into a single unit, featuring built-in high-precision MEMS sensors that enable 24/7 automated collection of triaxial tilt, acceleration, and ambient temperature and humidity data. The device supports both scheduled sampling and trigger‑based reporting; when monitored values exceed preset thresholds, it automatically initiates an alert and transmits the data. Equipped with 4G plus LoRa wireless connectivity, it offers low power consumption and an IP68 ingress protection rating, making it well suited to challenging outdoor conditions and capable of long‑term, maintenance‑free operation.

• Measurement Analyzer Terminal : Deployed at key nodes along the route, it aggregates sensor data and performs edge‑computing analytics to accelerate early‑warning response times.

The tilt‑angle monitoring system, which has been rolled out in bulk by the Baoji Track Maintenance Section of the Xi’an Railway Bureau, employs an architecture comprising a monitoring terminal, solar‑powered equipment, and an analysis terminal. It can receive alarm signals from multiple tilt sensors within a 500‑meter radius. When the geological structure of a slope changes, the tilt sensors installed on retaining structures or loess cut slopes undergo corresponding angular shifts; once the angular deviation exceeds the preset threshold, an on‑site audio‑visual alarm is triggered, and information is simultaneously transmitted to… SPEPC Railway Geological Hazard Monitoring and Early Warning Platform and the control platform.

Implementation Effectiveness

Following the deployment of integrated tilt-monitoring instruments and other equipment provided by SPEPC, the Xi’an Railway Bureau has established an automated monitoring network covering key structures along the railway line, including retaining walls, slopes, and cut slopes. By June 2026, the bureau had put 1,496 inclinometers into service within its jurisdiction, complemented by an intelligent tunnel video system, a foreign-object intrusion monitoring system, and other tools, enabling round-the-clock surveillance of track‑side infrastructure. In September 2025, at a bridge‑and‑tunnel equipment management conference held in Ankang, various railway sections jointly observed wireless train‑dispatching equipment for monitoring retaining‑wall tilts. This equipment uses sensors to collect tilt data in real time; when anomalies are detected, it immediately triggers audible and visual alarms and simultaneously transmits alerts to the control platform, facilitating rapid response and ensuring track safety.

According to a responsible official from the Xi’an Railway Bureau’s Track Maintenance Department, today, operators in the monitoring room can now obtain real-time status updates on all protective devices across the network and issue early warnings at the first sign of potential hazards, significantly enhancing grassroots disaster perception and early warning capabilities. With the large-scale deployment of inclinometers, the Xi’an Railway Bureau has established a three-dimensional protection system integrating human defense, physical defense, and technological defense in the complex mountainous terrain of the Qinling Mountains. This has effectively addressed the shortcomings of manual patrols, substantially reduced the heavy workload of intensive inspections during the flood season, and improved the accuracy of flood‑prevention early warnings. This project marks a solid step forward for the Xi’an Railway Bureau in transitioning railway track maintenance safety management from traditional “human defense” to a data‑driven, intelligent “technological defense” model, fully demonstrating Spepc Technology’s comprehensive strength in building large‑scale railway monitoring networks.