RailSystemModel

RailSystemModel (formerly 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 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.

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.

RailSystemModel 1.2 has been published online as of January 10, 2022. The release is available in Turtle (TTL) and in XMI.

The general documentation is the Enterprise Architect model browser published at /doc/rsm/rsm-1-2/. The April 2024 capture kept the frameset shell; the model pages it loads were not archived.

Base package

Base object and base property are a general pattern, bringing RSM closer to ontologies.

Quantities and units are made available, derived from SysML 1.2. In addition, some “shortcut classes” for usual quantities (Length, mass, …) are provided for convenience.

Specification, observation, prediction

New package “Observation & Measure” is derived from the SOSA/SSN (Semantic Sensor Network) ontology published by W3C with the participation of OGC.

In addition, this package addresses specifications (sets of requirements) and predictions in the same way.

This package paves the way to IOT and predictive maintenance, since at any time, nominal values, measured values and predicted values can be traced and compared.

Net properties

Net properties, or line properties, sum up properties over sets of lines, or even entire networks. For instance, an area mixing 600mm and 760mm gauge tracks could bear the property “narrow gauge”.

Net properties are meant to address such use cases as the Register of Infrastructure (RINF).

Infrastructure subsystems

Track, Signalling, and Energy are now provided.

They are kept lean, and have explicit relations with Expert Models such as EULYNX or IFC Rail.

Geometry

Geometry package borrows from IFC Rail geometry, itself inspired by OGC.

Grafting onto RSM is very simple, as only three fundamental classes are concerned (Base Object, Linear Location, Spot Location).

Time axis

Time Axis is about instants, intervals, and time reference systems.

All classes implement the essence of the W3C Time ontology.

Environment

Packages “Legal Entity” and “Weather” are available. Though apparently unrelated, they have some things in common:

1. They describe concepts that are relevant to asset management and operations, paving the way to RSM extension over upper business capability levels;
2. Both are based on publicly available ontologies.

All information included or disclosed is licensed under the European Union Public Licence EUPL, Version 1.2.