A Year of Transformative Collaboration: ERA and railML.org Enhance Railway Data Standards

The Memorandum sets the framework for the collaboration, particularly, in the promotion and facilitation of rail data exchange in the rail sector. This partnership has established a structured dialogue and long-term cooperation for sharing information, knowledge and experience in railway data modelling.

A key achievement has been the publication of the ERA and railML ontologies, which provide a common understanding across various subdomains of railway data, ensuring compatibility and consistency in data exchange. Additionally, use cases for data transformation from railML data to ERA RINF data provision have been developed.

Vasco Paul Kolmorgen, railML.org Governance Coordinator, stressed that: "For railML.org as a worldwide sector organisation, Europe stays our home and key market. We are pleased to align request and projects from Australia to Saudia Arabia to European rail industry by common data format and ontology".

"Over the past year, our collaboration with railML.org has advanced the standardisation of railway data, ensuring greater compatibility and consistency across the industry," said Josef Doppelbauer, ERA Executive Director. "The publication of the ERA and railML ontologies marks the beginning of an innovative chapter of efficiency, cohesion, and improved data exchange in the railway sector."

Looking ahead, both ERA and railML.org are committed to continuing their efforts for extensive cooperation as they work towards bringing RINF, railML and other data together for a more connected and efficient railway sector. In the near future, it is planned to work on the alignment of ontological models, when necessary, through regular meetings. Everyone is invited to participate in this.

For further information, please refer to the following webpages:

• ERA Knowledge Graph | European Union Agency for Railways (europa.eu)
• ERA vocabulary (europa.eu)
• Interoperable-data (EU Rail Vocabulary) (github.com)
• railML.org DevOps platform
• railML ontology

Background information

About the EU Agency for Railways:

The European Union Agency for Railways was established in Valenciennes in 2004 and has 200 employees representing more than 22 European Member States.

ERA has been providing EU Member States and the European Commission with technical assistance in the development and implementation of the Single European Railway Area. This comprises enhancing technical interoperability and harmonising rules, promoting simplified access for customers, developing a common approach to safety and safety culture, acting as system authority for the Infrastructure and Vehicle related registers, advising on telematics applications and ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System), monitoring National Safety Authorities and Notified Bodies and facilitating the exchange of information between the railway actors in Europe.

Since 16th June 2019, the EU Agency for Railways is mandated to issue single safety certificates and vehicle (type) authorisations valid in multiple European countries and to ensure an interoperable European Rail Traffic Management System.

About railML.org e.V:

railML.org e.V. is a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing standards and improving collaboration within the railway industry. It was founded in 2002 as a cooperation of interested partners to simplify communication between different railway applications, tackling the challenges of connecting various software systems. It has been providing open-source railway markup language to represent data in railway research projects and railway-specific software, all offered to the public at no cost.