Business Trends
Continuing the Conversation: Data as an Enabler for the Future of Railways
For nearly 200 years, railways have provided low-cost, increasingly competitive offers to transport passengers and goods around the world.
The European Union has defined 2021 as the European Year of Rail, setting very ambitious safety and sustainability targets to increase usage and support the future development of railways.
In line with the EU call to action, SAP hosted a virtual forum featuring leading railway undertakings and infrastructure providers to discuss key topics that will elevate rail as the most relevant sustainable transport mode for both passengers and freight. Can’t join the live event? Don’t worry, you can catch it on-demand.
To follow up on this event, we would like to use this SAP Community blog as a way to respond to all questions not answered during the event and any other comments or questions you may want to share later with the speakers or other attendees.
So, drop a question or comment in the below text box and get engaged with the SAP Travel & Transportation Community!
I look forward to seeing you online again soon.
Alicia Gutierrez
Global Senior Solution Expert, Head of Railways
Travel & Transportation IBU, SAP
Question 1: Sharing data provides collaboration opportunities that we don't have today. However, data can also be considered as a value asset itself ("the new gold") and NOT sharing it in some cases me give a competitive advantage. How do you see this paradox ?
I asked Urs this question during the interview and paraphrase his response as follows: "Operational data is very interesting for OEMs to improve not only their components or assets from a design perspective, but also regarding new business models by providing digital services such as monitoring systems or predictive algorithms to optimize business processes of the operator. But this collaboration has to be “on par” / equitable, meaning commercially attractive for both parties and not only the OEM. It is therefore important, that we as operators can build upon and continue our long lasting and good relationships with our OEMs; we need to setup a “Common data (failure, parts, indicators, rules, etc.) environment” to have a stable framework regarding that digital thread."
I fully agree with Urs' perspective. This will, and is already, impacting asset purchasing conditions. Asset owners and operators address data ownership issues in contracts as well as requiring data to be delivered according to specific standards as might be applicable to specific asset types.
Question 2: In which way the introduction of Asset Intelligence Network (AIN) changed the way you work with Asset Data ?