IBM Software Transportation

IBM Travel and Transportation

Framework for railroads
2 IBM Travel and Transportation Framework for railroads
Railroads and the smarter planet
Transportation is the circulatory system of our economy. Essen-
tially all tangible goods — food, clothing, medicine, fuel and
consumer products — have been transported to us from some-
where else. This ecosystem of vehicles, infrastructure and
terminals is undergoing dramatic changes driven by a world-
wide population explosion, urbanization, globalization and
technological innovation. Today, the world’s railroads carry
billions of tons of freight and tens of billions of passengers
each year — and the demand is steadily increasing. But rail-
roads today are challenged by an aging infrastructure, a wide
variety of geographically dispersed assets that must be man-
aged, and traditional business practices that lead to inefficien-
cies and bottlenecks.
By taking a smarter approach, by marrying digital technology
with physical infrastructure, railroads can capitalize on change
and create new opportunities. To do this, they must more accu-
rately predict demand and optimize capacity, assets and infrastruc-
ture. They must improve the end-to-end passenger experience.
They need to increase operational efficiency, and finally, rail-
roads must assure passengers and government regulators that
operations are safe and secure.
Building a framework for growth
The IBM Travel and Transportation Framework is a combina-
tion of IBM software products and assets that, together with
IBM’s experience providing solutions to the rail industry, offers
a platform for a family of solutions. The framework can enable
railroads to address the needs of complex sales and delivery
channels, optimize passenger and freight operations, and better
manage their extensive assets to deliver on the promise of a more
efficient, safe and secure freight and traveler experience. The
framework is open standards based and built on common
software building blocks. It is designed to support advanced
information management, analytics, automation and integra-
tion of processes such as reservations; multichannel sales and
service; asset management; operation control; and safety,
security, and surveillance.
Addressing the business challenges of
today’s rail systems
The IBM Travel and Transportation Framework focuses on
five key business domains that are specific to passenger and
freight rail systems.
• Reservation system modernization: IBM provides innovative
tools to modernize core reservation systems. We can help
railroads create a highly reliable, performance-optimized
reservation system that can help them deliver a wide variety of
innovative customer services while modernizing their pricing
and service models. IBM’s approach to modernizing reservation
systems is aligned with widely accepted industry standards.
• Multichannel sales and service: The framework can help
railroads provide a more seamless customer experience across
pretravel sales channels and on-trip touch points by creating a
“single view” of a passenger. The single view is accomplished
by integrating information from disparate data sources and
making it available to customer-centric processes.
 IBM Software 3

• Asset optimization: The framework provides the capability This incremental path to modernization, built on open standards
for railroads to better manage capital assets throughout their and the collaboration, optimization and analytical capabilities
revenue-producing life cycle, including acquisition, utilization, needed to integrate with your existing applications, can lower
maintenance, repair, overhaul and disposition. Assets can costs and reduce risk while improving the speed, safety, reli-
include rolling stock, locomotives and right-of-way equip- ability and profitability of today’s global rail systems.
ment such as signals and facilities.
• Operations control systems: The framework provides solu- For more information
tions that can help railroads improve operational effectiveness To learn more about the IBM Travel and Transportation
and reduce environmental impact through better planning of Framework, please contact your IBM sales representative or
schedules, load plans, facilities, crews and equipment. For rail- IBM Business Partner, or visit:
roads, this includes optimizing rolling stock and crews. The
solutions use business rules and business intelligence tools for ibm.com/software/industry/transportation
decision support.
• Security, safety and surveillance: The framework can help
railroads integrate data from video and other monitoring
devices and apply advanced analytics to improve security,
reduce security overhead and move from a reactive to a more
proactive response.

Addressing the challenges of the modern

railroad
The IBM Travel and Transportation Framework can help rail
companies transform the way they operate their business, from
the rail yard to the station, from the most isolated section of
track to the back office. A scalable, modular, integrated plat-
form built on industry standards, it enables rail companies to
start by solving a particular business problem in one of the five
domains — for example, reservation system modernization —
and then move on to execute a multichannel sales and service
system that enables a single view of the passenger. By leveraging
the first project to develop a second, then a third and so on,
economies of scale are achieved.
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