What is RailSystemModel?

RailSystemModel (formely known as RailTopoModel) is a generalist, functional, project-independent, implementable railways system model.

RailSystemModel proposes a universal representation of a railway network and associated events to support and facilitate business development within the rail sector. It integrates with Expert Projects like Eulynx, IFC Rail, … which are specialists of their respective domains and provides a structural backbone to represent digitally the operational railway system.

RailSystemModel is…:

• Generalist: RailSystemModel was launched as an enabler for cross domain interoperability. RailSystemModel does not intend to be the expert model in any specific railway domain or specific business process. RailSystemModel cooperates with Expert Projects in their respective domains (for example Eulynx for signaling, IFC Rail for BIM process, ERA RINF for an interoperability-oriented view of the European rail infrastructure…).
• Functional: RailSystemModel depicts railway subsystems, focussing on their roles and relations. RailSystemModel also provides some minimal description of components and assemblies, and is open for extensions or linking with specialized models.
• Project-independent: RailSystemModel is not focused on a particular use case but intends to support general / high-level concepts across domains of the railways system (track, signaling, energy, telecom, rolling stock, capacity planning, traffic management, planning of civil works, …) and  across system dimensions (functional, spatial, topology, geometry, time & lifecycle, observation / measure / prediction, …).
• Implementable: modelling approach shuns away from using constructs (like multiple inheritance) that may hinder implementation in a particular language. In general, the modelling approach follows the SOLID principles of object-oriented design.

RailSystemModel does not aim to become a model replacing all models but

• a model that provides a lean, solid (and SOLID) fundament for other, highly specialized, models such as Eulynx DataPrep,
• a model itself based on solid industry standards from OGC, W3C, ISO, and others,
• a model that can be used autonomously for general purpose tasks, such as describing railway assets, generating schemas and maps or simulating train runs.

Design principles

RailSystemModel rests on the same principles than its RailTopoModel predecessor. It is, at the same time:

• a conceptual model: RailSystemModel emphasizes the isolation of concepts. This ensures that the model is legible, maintainable and expandable, The model can be used in the context of Linked Open Data.
• an implementable model: RailSystemModel can be used “as is” for business purposes.

Documentation

Please refer to the General Documentation.

License

See Licensing page.