Rail’s digital future needs a change in leadership, not just technology

A railway can be designed digitally and still leave its operator with information it cannot readily use.

As a project passes from designers to contractors to maintenance teams, decisions can become disconnected from the records that explain them. Different versions circulate. Information gets rebuilt. The operator inherits files that need to be checked before they can support the everyday work of keeping trains running.

For Daniela Becker, Autodesk’s vice president for its EMEA Enterprise Customer Group, this is one of the most consequential gaps in rail’s digital transformation.

“Data that was good enough to build from is often unusable by handover, so the value stops where the project phase ends,” she says.

Fast Company Middle East spoke with Becker while attending Autodesk’s Rail Summit in Rome at the company’s invitation. Held on November 10–11, the summit focused on digital project delivery, AI, interoperability, and the connections between design, construction, and operations. 

Her argument is that better software alone will not resolve the industry’s problems. Project owners also need to decide what information matters, who maintains it, and how it will reach the people responsible for infrastructure decades after construction ends.

PLAN THE HANDOVER BEFORE DESIGN BEGINS

Becker sees progress in design coordination and construction planning. Building information modeling, or BIM, helps teams work with shared digital representations of a project. Reality capture records existing conditions, while connecting BIM with geographic information systems places designs within the surrounding landscape and networks.

On an operating railway, she says, reliable information about existing conditions is particularly valuable because access to the track is limited.

But improvements within one stage of a project do not necessarily carry into the next. A contractor may receive information organized around a designer’s needs rather than construction requirements. An operator may then inherit another version without a dependable record of what changed.

“A signaling contractor needs the track designer’s decisions, and a maintenance team needs an accurate record of every bridge it will keep in service for decades,” Becker says.

She proposes a starting point: agree on information requirements before design begins, maintain a shared source for the current version, and plan the handover from day one.

That makes information management an owner’s responsibility from the outset. The eventual operator’s requirements need to shape what the project team collects, rather than being addressed when construction is almost complete.

AI CANNOT REPAIR THE RECORD

The quality of that information also determines how useful AI can become.

Becker sees immediate opportunities in automating repetitive work, helping engineers explore design options, and making project information easier to retrieve. These applications could free up time for work requiring professional judgment.

She is more skeptical of claims that AI can replace that judgment or compensate for poorly managed information.

“It’s overpromised when it’s sold as a replacement for engineering judgment, or as a fix for fragmented data,” she says. “If your information isn’t standardized, AI just finds the wrong answer faster.”

This places a less glamorous task ahead of adoption: making sure the underlying records are reliable.

It also changes how customers should assess the return on AI. Faster design work is one measure. Becker argues that the more important gains could come from giving engineers time to plan work on live railways, assess embodied carbon, or improve long-term asset performance.

Those are outcomes the industry will need to demonstrate. Automating a task does not, by itself, establish that a railway will cost less to maintain or perform better.

A DIFFERENT STARTING POINT FOR THE MIDDLE EAST

For Middle Eastern developers, Becker sees an opportunity to incorporate these requirements early, drawing on the maintenance and asset-management experience of established networks.

The issue is becoming more immediate as new services begin operating. Etihad Rail says its UAE passenger network has launched, initially connecting Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al Dhaid, and Fujairah, with further stations scheduled to follow. 

Becker advises bringing operational requirements into project development before design choices and information practices become difficult to change. That includes establishing consistent data standards and considering how digital models will support the railway after opening.

The opportunity is substantial, but it depends on coordination among organizations with different contracts, responsibilities, and software.

A shared platform can help connect those participants. It also raises a question for companies such as Autodesk: how much freedom will customers retain to use other providers’ tools?

“Customers shouldn’t have to choose between a connected platform and the tools they already use,” Becker says.

She points to open standards and openBIM initiatives as part of Autodesk’s approach. For customers, the practical test is whether information can move between systems and remain usable by the next team.

FROM BUYING TOOLS TO CHANGING WORK

Becker says enterprise customers’ questions have changed. Discussions that once centered on software purchases now focus more on getting useful work done with limited staff and resources.

“Three years ago, the conversations were about which tools to buy,” she says. “Now customers are asking how they can get more from the people they have, and how to keep project information useful long after handover.”

That shift demands changes in both management and technology. Teams need clear business objectives, training, and permission to discuss failures without disguising them as successes.

The summit, Becker says, should encourage leaders to share difficult lessons as openly as achievements. Without that exchange, individual organizations risk repeating problems their peers have already encountered.

For Autodesk, she describes the next five years as a test of whether its products and partnerships can preserve the usefulness of project information throughout an infrastructure asset’s life.

“We’ll measure ourselves by whether customers can see that value across the whole project lifecycle,” she says.

For rail developers, that means looking beyond the quality of the design model at the point of approval. The more demanding question is whether the team maintaining a bridge years later can still trust the information it receives.