RailState Sensor Outage Manager

The Status History endpoint reports time intervals when individual sensors were operating. A gap in operating intervals would indicate an outage.

This endpoint is available via the API, and allows users to integrate outage data directly into your systems or applications for timely updates.

Prior to July 1, 2024 sensor outages were managed manually. Although an outage history for each sensor may be available from the point in which each sensor was added to the network, there may be gaps (missed outages), as only a few types of outages were being logged, such as when we took a sensor down to be re-aimed and re-calibrated. Not all outages may have been logged prior to July 1, 2024.

After July 1, 2024 RailState implemented an automated outage reporting system. This reporting system updates the operating log when the sensor is offline for whatever reason.

It is important to note that in most cases, with only a few exceptions*, RailState sensors can continue to operate in an "offline mode". In the offline mode sensor can, in most cases, continue to collect data for a period of time, and then transmit the data to the cloud when the sensor reconnects. (This time interval would vary depending on the amount of rail traffic we see, and the length of time a sensor is down for - and really is a factor of disk space).

The main point is that short intervals should not result in missed sightings. Sensor downtime in combination with the probability of a train having passed during that down time limits the likelihood of a truly missed data.

By default, the data for the last 30 days are provided. The time-range can be changed using the query parameters.

* There are a few exceptions in which we are unable to operate in offline mode. They include when there is a full power outage, when we are working on the re-aiming / re-calibration of a sensor, and when a software / hardware issue occurs, limiting communication with the sensor.