Railinc Corporation's Damaged and Defective Car Tracking (DDCT) system has been launched and is operational for rail carriers, freight car owners and freight car repair shops.
The tracking system is a centralised, web-based application and can be used by authorised rail industry users to enter and respond to damaged and defective rail car incidents.
The DDCT system eliminates the outdated 3.5 x 8in paper defect cards and defect card brackets by automating the manual process for identifying and tracking damaged and defective rail cars.
Rail industry interchange and car hire rules require all rail carriers, car owners and repair shops to use the DDCT system.
Reporting of incidents of damaged and defective cars began on 5 January 2011, the DDCT system's official launch date.
The primary purpose of the defect card was to aid in maintaining a record of identified defects on each car, where the defects originated, and to determine the responsibility for such defects.
