Loco accidents in the underground mining industry have in the past resulted in unacceptable high human loss, as well as production and financial losses. Loco drivers cannot always see other locos in haulages and cross cuts, and when driving at 20km/hr a fully laden loco has to engage its braking system well in advance to be able to stop in time. The Loco Accident Prevention System incorporates the active RFID reader and tag technology, which enables the loco to be de-rated to crawl speed, or a pre-determined speed, and alerts the driver well in advance when other locos are in close proximity (approx. 70m), thus limiting the possibility of collisions and other accidents.

The solution consists of Wavetrend active RFID Industrial tags fitted to the loco and its guard cart at the back.

Each loco is fitted with a LAPS unit that is programmed with its own tag (up to 4 tags: 2 for the loco and guard cart and 2 for its batteries). The LAPS unit then registers its own tags and ignores them unless they go missing (Driver is alerted). When a tag from another loco is read (up to 80m under ground) the LAPS unit alerts the loco driver by an audio and visual warning and if connected to the loco controller, force the loco to crawl speed. All events are recorded on the LAPS unit for audit trail. The data (50 000 time and date stamped transactions) can be downloaded via RS232 to a Laptop or via the LAPS Bluetooth handheld unit.