Australia’s rail operators face increasing pressure to deliver more capacity, reliability and sustainability from existing infrastructure.

As networks become more complex and data-rich, digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI) are emerging as key enablers of safer, more efficient and more resilient rail operations.

The National Rail Action Plan recognises the benefits of a digital rail network, but beyond digital signalling, there are many areas of the rail network that can benefit from AI and digitalisation.

With more data than ever at their fingertips, using digitalisation and AI solutions is allowing operators to move from traditional, scheduled processes to solutions that help optimise across the value chain of the rail industry.

While many organisations are only beginning to realise digitalisation and AI can transform rail operations, Siemens Mobility has spent decades developing, deploying and refining these technologies across some of the world’s most complex rail networks, including Australia.

Today, with a growing team of Australian specialists and proven local project experience, Siemens Mobility is helping rail operators unlock greater capacity, reliability, safety and efficiency through technology.

Siemens has been a pioneer in delivering digital and artificial intelligence solutions globally for decades, evolving from foundational automation and software integration in the mid-20th century to sophisticated AI-powered platforms and applications today.

As one of the largest industrial software companies, Siemens invests heavily in the digital technologies that increasingly underpin modern rail operations.

Siemens has been developing rail industry AI solutions long before it became normalised through ChatGPT or Claude. Initial focus was on applications relating to service and maintenance, such as condition monitoring and preventative maintenance of trains and rail infrastructure assets, where data is collected from field sensors and analysed for failure patterns or anomalies.

As the technology rapidly evolves, Siemens is seeing the convergence of information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and Internet of Things (IoT) – enhanced by AI – and how this is revolutionising operations by enabling real-time data integration, predictive maintenance and optimised energy use.

As Australia’s rail industry is on the journey of digital transformation, with more than 150 years of experience in Australia, Siemens Mobility has the proven expertise, technology platforms and local capability to help operators deliver this transformation and unlock the next level in mobility.

It has a team of local experts working across digital signalling, advanced manufacturing, software and AI to be a local technology partner for the rail industry as governments and networks modernise and leverage technology.

Implementing new technology and solutions is part of Siemens strength, for example it implemented the first digital signalling solutions in Australia and New Zealand with both European Train Control System/ETCS level one (L1) and two (L2).

Digital signalling is a key solution for upgrading the rail network as Australia adopts ETCS Level 2 as its standard. For Siemens Mobility’s Ronak Trivedi, Technical Director of the ETCS Level 2 deployment in Sydney, this technology signifies one of the largest ever step changes to the operation of domestic rail networks.

“I like working with ETCS Level 2 and digital signalling because it’s novel for Australia and New Zealand, and it’s challenging,” he said.

“We’re doing first‑in‑class applications, rewriting operational rules and principles. ETCS Level 2 makes a tangible impact to the community and users.

“With ETCS Level 2, we can deliver more reliable services and run more trains, more often, using existing civil infrastructure. We can safely improve headways and offer more services for passengers.”

Among the biggest beneficiaries of the technology are maintenance teams, with the system providing significant improvements when it comes to safety. Specifically, the opportunity to greatly reduce the time and access required to complete maintenance tasks.

“For maintainers, ETCS Level 2 removes a lot of trackside assets,” Trivedi explained. “That means they don’t have to go to site as often, in less than ideal environments.

“They’re also less likely to be exposed to moving traffic. We’re making it safer for maintainers while improving services for passengers.”

Within his role, Trivedi is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Traffic Management System/TMS associated with ETCS Level 2. He also acts as one of the heads of engineering, supporting operational decisions on how ETCS is planned and eventually managed in the network.

Combining his knowledge garnered through interactions with international projects and teams, it is Trivedi’s ambition to bring global best practice together with local adaptation to deliver the best possible solution in Australia.

“We understand local requirements and use our technology base from Europe to answer the question locally for our transport customers,” Trivedi said. “We’re not saying, ‘You must do what Europe does.’ We show how you can use the technology in your environment, for your users.

“Having local people on the ground interfacing directly with the customer is a real strength. We understand them, we work in partnership with them, and we want to do the best by our community. We serve their needs rather than telling them what to do, and customers really appreciate that.”

Tanay Kumar shares a similar ethos. As a Senior Rolling Stock Engineer at Siemens Mobility, Kumar’s particular expertise lies in the pioneering of technology that merges the real and digital worlds, the core strategy of Siemens.

As he explained, combining the two can help to streamline data-influenced decision making, with Siemens’ Railigent X suite of service and applications emerging as a key resource in this space.

“Railigent X is our data analytics platform,” Kumar said. “It has been around for about 15 years, and helps reduce disruption and make smarter maintenance decisions with challenging constraints and tightening budgets through a technology agnostic unified platform.”

Railigent X’s core function is to gather and structure large volumes of operational data from across a network. A few examples of the typical data sets recorded are – amongst many others – vehicle location, speed, temperatures, subsystem health and fault codes.

Once this data is captured, Siemens’ system applies a mix of AI and data-driven solutions to present the information in a user‑friendly way. Railigent X also runs anomaly‑detection algorithms to help spot “unusual” behaviours.

If such a behaviour is identified, the user is alerted to its presence, laying the groundwork for timely fixes and reducing network disruption. Kumar said that adopting such a system helps transform maintenance and asset management that allows for improved network performance and capacity, and lower operational risk.

“With Railigent X, the typical model in a depot changes from reactive to proactive management,” he said. “Instead of discovering two trams with issues at 5am and racing against the clock to fix them, you know about those faults the night before.

“The question stops being ‘How do we fix this really quickly?’ and becomes ‘Do we have enough people? Do we have a spare we can swap? Can we combine this with an upcoming service?’ It changes the way that you can approach problems.”

And Railigent X doesn’t just help to prevent significant disruption in the short term, as Kumar added.

“Over the longer term, you learn how things behave before they break down, so you can program pre‑alerts and talk to operations or timetabling to prevent issues before they impact customers.”

Encouraging the modal shift to rail involves making travelling by public transport more attractive for passengers for a seamless travel experience. For Imran Karim, Senior Project Manager at Siemens Mobility working on MaaS solutions for customers in Australia, the importance of a coherent and streamlined planning system is highlighted daily to make optimal use of existing infrastructure.

As part of his role, Karim is tasked with supporting both people and organisations to coordinate effective train planning systems/TPS – essential tools to enable railway infrastructure managers to create conflict-free timetables for passenger and freight that optimise the existing infrastructure, from strategic long-term planning to annual and daily timetables.

Take Karim’s current project, he’s been tasked with delivering a real-time timetable and planning solution that effectively creates a digital twin of a rail network.

“This comprises thousands of kilometres, while being accurate to the metre of a platform,” Karim said.

“Once you have the track geometry, gradients, train weights, speed profiles, braking distances and the like, a layer can sit on top of it – which is our TPS plan – which can accurately calculate the time it takes to go from point A to B.

“Stakeholders can then use that as a planning tool, push it out to other systems, and later, once their system is online, use the available data to guide planning in the future.”

The ultimate goal in these cases is the establishment of a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) application. So, what is a MaaS app?

MaaS refers to a centralised resource that allows users to plan their journeys. Information such as the availability and schedule of long-distance and suburban trains, buses, car sharing, e-scooters and more are located in one spot, meaning commuters can plan, book and use public transport services with ease.

With technologies such as ETCS L2 and Railigent X laying the foundation, Siemens can combine journey planning, traffic and timetable management tools, and passenger experience into one single and coherent solution.

Developing new infrastructure product solutions to life is another challenge entirely.

Brandon Fisher is a Product Engineering Manager at Siemens Mobility’s rail infrastructure manufacturing facility in Melbourne, where his team manages trackside products, supporting the company’s ability to build and test key rail infrastructure products.

A key component of Fisher’s work is advanced manufacturing and rapid prototyping, where three-dimensional (3D) printing has emerged as an essential tool to the design process.

“Like with AI and Railigent X, we’ve been using 3D printing and additive manufacturing for rapid prototyping for about 12 years now, so we’ve been on the forefront,” Fisher said.

“[3D printing has] become part of proof of concept now. We have a design review and the printed design, which is usually in a smaller format, so we can play around and actually see how things interact. That really reduces the mistakes and iterations when we’re prototyping new developments.”

Siemens developed a streamlined process for evaluating and completing revisions, with constant communication ensuring that design, manufacturing and the end customer are always kept in the loop.

“Most people don’t know that Siemens is a top‑10 software company,” Fisher said. “We use Siemens’ Product Lifecycle Management software, which is called Teamcenter.

“That’s now integrated with Siemens’ CAD software NX, which allows seamless communication through to the factory and our suppliers whenever we’re doing revisions.”

3D printing is also being used to accelerate production with rapid prototyping. Rather than waiting for traditional tooling, Siemens’ team can print the component, encase it in sand, melt out the printed core, and pour the final metal into the mould. They have taken the development time from three months to three weeks to have a fully testable metal part.

Physical testing, combined with digitally-enhanced quality assurance helps to optimise the final quality of every component.

“AI is now embedded within Siemens NX, our CAD software,” Fisher explained. “AI can help with things like CAD modelling where it does a lot of the initial work for you and can also check your drawings.

“We’re investigating AI‑assisted self-checking to catch all those small errors that we might not pick up. It’s not about taking someone’s job; it’s about making your job easier and better. You can respond faster and get nitty‑gritty work out of the way.”

Above all, Fisher is proud of the opportunity to teach and learn from the next generation of industry specialists.

“The upskilling never stops,” he said. “We’re always attending our CAD and Teamcenter partners’ workshops. We send a group out, they find some of these new features, and they bring back the information and distil it to the team.

“The younger generation of employees pushes the older generation. We’re always evolving and looking for the latest technology, how we can use it better, and how we can upskill our people to deliver the best products and solutions for our customers and the rail industry.”

As rail networks continue to modernise, Siemens Mobility’s combination of global technology leadership, proven local delivery experience and deep digital expertise positions it as a trusted partner capable of helping operators unlock the full potential of digital rail.