In recent years, the Rail industry has been experiencing a global renaissance as the significant benefits of Rail as a sustainable mode of transportation and travel are being rediscovered.

Macro trends, such as increasing urban expansion, population growth, traffic congestion, pollution, and carbon emissions, have driven transportation planners and their stakeholders to reconsider the value proposition of rail. Global commitment to reduced emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050 creates significant motivation for a modal shift from all other forms of transport to rail.

Unprecedented investment in rail infrastructure is now occurring to meet this forecast increase in demand. Much of this investment is targeted at new rail infrastructure, which will take several years to develop. Therefore, to meet more immediate needs, there is a need to augment existing rail infrastructure with targeted network investments, such as crossing loops, line duplications, etc., to provide greater capacity in the near term.

‘Smart Networks’ is part of Dassault Systemes’ DELMIA Quintiq Rail Planner suite of applications. It allows future state virtual network configurations to be modeled and assessed in terms of their ability to support future network capacity demand. Multiple scenarios covering different virtual network configurations and demand plans can be simulated and compared via common KPI metrics, enabling Infrastructure Managers to identify those network investments delivering the “best bang for buck”.

With limited annual investment expenditure and a need to achieve significant capacity improvements in the short term, ‘Smart Networks’ supports Infrastructure Managers in making the optimal investment choices.