Rail: taking over networks, not risks

The European Union ties the objective of digitising and liberalising public transportation in the EU. How are they connected?

Across Europe, more routes and contracts are put out to competitive tender. Operators with strong digital capabilities tend to win because they know costs and constraints, have a bankable rolling stock plan, proven staffing and maintenance regimes and a digital backbone for punctuality, customer information and reporting. They can commit to firm KPIs at lower subsidy and deliver.

After award, the same backbone drives success and profitability. It gives live control of trains and buses, protects revenue and standardises safety, accessibility and emissions reporting, so audits are routine not a scramble.

And what we see today is that takeovers can be on short timelines, requiring core capabilities that can be implemented in months, not years. This necessitates tools that are scalable, interoperable and proven for these use cases. For example, they should be able to centralise maintenance activities while accounting for the differences between trams, trains and buses.

Can you give a practical example of how an operator can be takeover-ready within weeks, not months?

Transdev offers a very good example of this strategy.

In February 2024, after the previous operator’s financial difficulties, it was awarded the operation of a major rail network in Sweden. Transdev launched operations in June 2024 and took over maintenance on 7 December 2024 – that’s just 10 months from award to full operation! As part of the transition, Transdev integrated 700 employees from the former operator to ensure continuity and expertise in service delivery.

How did they do it? They leveraged Hexagon’s industry-leading asset management platform, HxGN EAM, in SaaS, under an existing group framework. Together with Hexagon and its partner Midport, they realised a business value assessment to identify operational maturity gaps and set priorities. This enabled an agile rollout, thus rapidly delivering the full suite of capabilities while preserving flexibility for future expansion and ensuring a seamless transition for 12 million annual passengers.

Why put asset management at the centre?

The strength of a platform like HxGN EAM is that it’s built for transportation and the ecosystem in which it operates – more so than, say, the company’s ERP.

This means that it can manage many dimensions that affect availability, safety and cost. In the example I just mentioned, HxGN EAM supports both rail and bus operations, covering maintenance, procurement, warehouse management, finance and supplier management. And, because of its strong interoperability, it can integrate into ERP and into Sweden’s shared rail rolling stock maintenance and fault data system, FORD.

What we also see is that asset management is central to unify compliance and performance improvements.

How so?

Take the example of TransN, which operates multimodal transportation in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The company has used HxGN EAM to consolidate performance data in a centralised system, promote standardisation and phase out paper forms and spreadsheets.

The result: Regulatory and ISO 9001:2015 requirements are fully met, electronic checklists have simplified task execution and supported more efficient and sustainable daily operations. Preventive maintenance can now be scheduled proactively, leveraging metrics such as kilometres travelled and operating hours, while KPIs like mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR), along with vehicle availability, provide greater precision for decision-making.

Talking about compliance, what does NIS2 change for transport operators in 2026?

NIS2 makes cyber a board-level duty. It brings stricter risk management, faster incident reporting and wider supplier oversight across IT and Operational Technology, or OT. NIS2 is significant for transport that reaches ticketing, depot systems, signalling interfaces and onboard networks.

The challenge is that we see very varying levels of visibility between these two environments. For example, in 2023, EU cyber-security ENISA found that three out of four transportation companies had no dedicated role for OT cyber-security and one in two had no dedicated budget.

That’s where coupling an EAM with an OT cyber-security platform can make a difference, by bringing asset inventory together with software versions, changing logs and vendor exposure and providing clear guidance on vulnerabilities and patching. Operators still need layered defence, segmentation and monitoring, but it greatly simplifies inventory, the detection of unauthorised configuration changes and the restoration of key operational systems, which are at the heart of NIS2.

It is often said that any digital transformation initiative succeeds or fails on the people aspect of change. How do you see that playing out?

That’s true: People decide whether digital change sticks and, during takeovers, companies face the additional challenge of onboarding a large number of people within a short timeline.

What’s key is to capitalise on their knowledge and have workers take part in business-process design. Over the course of implementation, one approach that can pay dividends is to initiate a maintenance excellence working group to drive continuous improvement.

What we also see is that operations and maintenance workers are open to change if it brings value compared to legacy software.

A platform like HxGN EAM can augment worker know-how and resilience with IoT tools and AI, plus digital work features like voice input, to improve job safety and satisfaction. For example, earlier this year, we launched HxGN Alix, an AI assistant within EAM and digital twins with a high focus on security and accuracy. That’s where we see the future.