Railway systems face a convergence of critical challenges: accidental deaths and injuries, theft, and costly service disruptions. Traditional monitoring approaches such as video cameras and mounted sensors involve sparse, maintenance-heavy point measurements that are ill-equipped to provide the closely-spaced yet system-wide visibility needed to prevent these events.

To address these challenges, Applied Environmental Intelligence (AEI) has developed TrackMate, an automated assistant that analyzes data from existing fiber optic infrastructure to deliver real-time alerts that guide predictive safety and maintenance. Rather than relying on a patchwork of individual sensors, TrackMate transforms existing fiber optic cables into a real-time sensing system that monitors the full length of the railway– all with minimal new hardware, no sensor maintenance, and no blind spots. 

AEI was founded by Stephanie Olinger, Brad Lipovsky and Marine Denolle as a spinout from the UW’s FiberLab, which is focused on enabling transformative science through easily deployed optical fiber sensing. Assisted and supported by Comotion, AEI participated in the Spring 2025 Innovation Gap Fund competition, securing a full $75,000 award. Stephanie joined the PEP in August of 2025, and the University’s support has enabled continued customer discovery, business development, and product development– integral as AEI continues our commercialization pathway.