News on the Conceptual Data Model and usage examples by an Infrastructure Manager

On June 11, FP1 MOTIONAL Transversal Topics presented its fourth Town Hall Workshop, this time focused on providing news on the development of the Conceptual Data Model and outlining examples of usage by Trafikverket, the railway infrastructure manager in Sweden.

The Conceptual Data Model is a project- and platform-independent data model of the rail system, expressed using ontologies and making extensive references to published standards to foster interoperability, facilitate processing by machines and reduce required implementation efforts. The Conceptual Data Model is one of the four digital enablers currently under development within the Transversal Topics subgroup of the FP1 MOTIONAL project. Those enablers are intended to serve the need of the railway sector and to support the research and innovation efforts under way in the System and Innovation Pillars of Europe’s Rail.

Trafikverket provided an overview of the recurring need for an infrastructure manager to disseminate digital information to various stakeholders with large commonalities in data requirements but nevertheless a diversity of specific data requirements and expectations in data formats. Trafikverket illustrated how the combination of the Conceptual Data Model ontology and the usage of alignment ontologies enable to provide fit-for-purpose data to interested stakeholders.

An overview of the design philosophy, of the technical foundations and overall rail system coverage of the Conceptual Data Model ensued, as well as illustration of practical ongoing development aspects of the Conceptual Data Model for various activities within Europe’s Rail (infrastructure description to serve the evolving needs of ERA’s Register of Infrastructure, maintenance-related use cases within the Innovation Pillar, Rolling Stock model in collaboration with the System Pillar, …).

Finally, a short overview of the OntoRail knowledge engine, used to support the linking between ontologies and the needs of terminology harmonization within Europe’s Rail, was provided.

FP1 MOTIONAL series of Town Hall meeting will be continuing with further events planned at the end of the summer and in the following months.