Software engineering

Digitalisation, automation and artificial intelligence. Valid IT infrastructures and software are the key to equipping rail as a central mobility hub for the future. It sounds simple in theory – but the reality of digital rail is complex. The target images of digital rail are already defining an end-to-end digital, decentrally networked rail system across Europe. Trains are increasingly travelling autonomously and fully automated. The use of artificial intelligence in rail transport is being researched across a broad spectrum. It offers the potential to conquer new areas of application in the planning and control of railway operations in a short space of time.

The systems themselves are also changing: hardware system components are increasingly being moved to the cloud or replaced and made more flexible by cloud technologies in on-premise data centres. The paradigm of a system consisting of hardware and software components is dissolving and being replaced by the provision of guaranteed resources such as computing power, memory, bandwidth, runtimes and latency. New concepts from cloud-native system design are finding their way in and are initiating a fundamental rethink.

This also applies to system security: while perimeter control was previously relied on, cloud architecture relies on zero-trust concepts. Access is already controlled and monitored in the infrastructure on an application-specific basis. Strong identity management is used for authentication, identification and authorisation. All data transfers via networks and storage media are consistently encrypted.

This does not affect the requirement for a validatable procedure. As part of developing software-intensive systems, NEXTRAIL establishes efficient and reproducible processes that consistently fulfil development standards such as CENELEC 50128.

The rapid pace of evolution of the digital transformation in the railway sector requires not only modern, efficient and standard-compliant software development but also a deep understanding of the railway eco-system. What is needed is a profound knowledge of which future technological leaps and normative factors can be expected and how these should be sensibly incorporated into a concept today.

NEXTRAIL’s interdisciplinary knowledge of the overall context of the railway system enables it to develop the software architecture and processes for solutions that not only fulfil the defined objectives but also open up valuable technical and economic prospects for the future. The result is to optimise and sustainably secure the safety, reliability, efficiency and profitability of the specific project.