Individual solutions, Research and Innovations

We develop individual software solutions and applications in close coordination and cooperation with our customers. Our software modules, databases, data models and IT competencies in connection with technical, broad expertise also offers a reliable basis for special tasks, algorithmic developments and testing of new approaches that enable the exploration, architecture and confirmation of new concepts and processes as well as a good IT Consulting for processes and procedures in the railway sector.
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BaSIs-BZ/LeiDa-D (DB-Projekt PRISMA)

For several years now, the PRISMA project has been renewing the IT systems of the operations centers of DB Netz AG with the aim of creating an IT system for the network-wide rail traffic dispatching with modern software components.

A sub-component of this overall project is a central infrastructure database that is process-wise integrated into the existing distributed IT landscape, merges work and data flows and provides aggregated, network-wide databases, ensures consistency and brings processes together transparently.

The subcomponent (BaSIs-BZ / LeiDa-D) of the overall PRISMA project is largely designed, implemented, tested and put into operation by VIA Consulting & Development GmbH.

Spotlights

Project functions in brief:

  • Network-wide basic and infrastructure data of the nationwide railway network
  • Synchronization of all operation centers and their data provision
  • Aggregation of processes and workflows
  • Extension by own data sets and extension data
  • Consolidation of all data sets
  • Multi-dimensional versioning with data versions, different data sets, status states and regions
  • Real-time embedding including security and failover implementation
  • Central data supplier for a large number of preceeding systems
  • Elaboration and implementation of new processes, data handling procedures and consolidation aspects

Languages and techniques used:

  • Java, Spring, Spring Boot, Vaadin
  • Databases, SQL, JPA with Oracle and H2
  • Jenkins, Ansible, Git etc., SonarQube, various test environments

Net Monitor

In the “Net Monitor” project, fundamentals were researched and created, whether and how the heterogeneous data sources and operational IT systems of different orientations can be merged in terms of data technology, whether a broad data warehouse can be built from these sources, data mining can be operated on this warehouse and conclusions and visualizations can be derived from a large number of data which, when combined, allow an immensely greater overall knowledge and insight into daily operations than any individual IT system can provide for itself.

Spotlights

Summary, linking and comparison of various data sources of an infrastructure operator:
  • Order data
  • Timetable data
  • Infrastructure data
  • Order and billing data
  • Construction planning and availabilities
  • Actual operational data
  • Railway operational capacity data

Technical aspects:

  • Delphi and web technologies
  • Firebird database
  • Various data interfaces and data formats
  • Use of services and asynchronous data transfers

DisKon/FreeFloat

In the DisKon project, possibilities and potentials of automatic, computer-aided dispatching of rail traffic were researched, algorithms were developed, prototyped and evaluated in the railway operations laboratory of the TU Dresden together with dispatchers from DB Netz AG.

A continuation of these automatic disposition approaches can then be found in the FreeFlow project of DB Netz AG, in which the previously developed approaches were used under real-time conditions in the operation control center in Karlsruhe and applied to the Upper Rhine corridore.

The projects were carried out in close partnership with the VIA / RWTH Aachen.

Spotlights

Procedure and approaches:

  • Microscopic infrastructure and timetable data
  • Microscopic travel time and occupancy calculation
  • Detection of current operations based on UIC telegrams
  • Forecasting and detection of occupancy and connection conflicts
  • Automatic heuristic-based, asynchronous disposition
  • Propagation of the disposition decisions automatically and partially automatically

Test and evaluation:

  • Diskon:
    • Railway laboratory of the TU Dresden, corresponds to approx. 200 km of “real” track
    • Operation under real-time conditions with low system load (approx. 1 telegram every 3 seconds)
    • Automatic propagation to dispatchers in the laboratory
  • FreeFloat:
    • Dispatch area with a track length of approx. 2000 km
    • Integration into real control systems under real-time conditions
    • System load approx. 3 telegrams per second including forecasting and automatic disposition decision
    • Manual propagation to operation control center dispatchers

FIA – Travellers information display

As part of a project that is supposed to analyze the quality and correctness of the passenger information, the difficulty arose of analyzing the data of the passenger information displays (FIA) concerned and making them electronically processable. A major problem is determining the actual information displayed by the FIAs. Due to the various ages, designs and manufacturers of displays, there is no semantically based uniform data format for evaluation, so that questions about semantically based data extraction from large amounts of log data arose and this information should be blended with operational data and timetable data to be able to answer quality questions automatically and on a daily basis.

Spotlights

Techniques and conditions of use:

  • Cyclical provision of log files
  • Python-based log file analysis
  • Semantic processing of the read data
  • Structured storage and consistency check of the extracted information
  • Provision of up-to-date data analyzes and quality evaluations