Since April 2024, MEV AT has been among the users of RailOpt. As one of the largest independent providers of railway operations services in Austria, the company now relies on the fully integrated resource management system from Qnamic. The successful completion of the project marks an important milestone for MEV AT on its path toward digitalization.

With RailOpt, MEV AT was able to sustainably optimize and streamline its processes. Administrative effort has been noticeably reduced, especially in payroll, which can now be handled much more efficiently. RailOpt replaces a multitude of complex Excel spreadsheets that had accumulated over the years, and the quick and accurate calculation of hours and allowances enables timely invoicing.

“The automated billing is a key component of our digital transformation. It creates transparency, speed, and reliability – exactly what a modern railway operation needs.”

– Oliver Schmidt, Managing Director, MEV AT

Thanks to up-to-date real-time data and reports, the company has also significantly improved its controlling. The optimized processes enable continuous cost control and free up personnel resources that can now be used more productively in scheduling and dispatching.

With the introduction of RailOpt WEB, employees also gain better visibility into their working hours and will soon be able to enter schedule changes directly.

MEV AT has thus taken a significant step toward digitalization. The first successes achieved with RailOpt show that digitalization is not an end in itself. The improved processes provide greater transparency and a noticeable improvement in daily operational work. Qnamic looks forward to continuing to support MEV AT on its digitalization journey.

eurobahn has successfully implemented Qnamic’s RailOpt resource management system in productive operation within just eleven months. The project was carried out during ongoing operations and was successfully completed with the final go-live on December 14, 2025. The goal was to achieve more efficient planning of personnel and rolling stock, as well as to provide noticeable relief for employees.

With an annual transport volume of around 17 million train kilometers, eurobahn is one of the leading regional rail passenger transport providers in North Rhine-Westphalia. The densely packed, urban rail network places particularly high demands on planning and operations. Numerous construction sites, route interruptions, and rising costs for energy and track access further intensify the operational framework. Against this backdrop, eurobahn decided to fundamentally modernize its planning and dispatching processes and consolidate them into a central system. The aim was to manage personnel and vehicle deployment more efficiently, reduce administrative effort, and at the same time increase legal certainty in planning. Special attention was paid to easing the workload of employees in day-to-day operations.

Following an international tender, eurobahn chose Qnamic as its long-term partner and RailOpt as its new resource management system. The decisive factor was, in particular, the fully integrated planning of personnel and rolling stock, in which planning steps are checked in real time for qualifications and conflicts. The proven standard solution RailOpt offers a high level of investment security while providing the necessary flexibility for operational specifics.

With this complex project, RailOpt was successfully put into productive operation. Implementation took place in close cooperation between the project teams of eurobahn and Qnamic—parallel to ongoing passenger service. Training, system adjustments, and the step-by-step integration of processes were carefully coordinated.

“We implemented RailOpt to optimize our operational processes. Over a month after the full system rollout, we can say that we made the right decision. Our colleagues working with RailOpt are already giving positive feedback. We also value the partnership with Qnamic, as we were able to put the system into stable operation in a short time.” – Karsten Schulz, Technical Managing Director at eurobahn.

With RailOpt, recurring tasks are increasingly automated, information and communication flows are simplified, and transparency in planning and dispatching is enhanced. eurobahn expects this to provide sustainable relief for employees and greater flexibility in daily operations.

Going forward, RailOpt will form the foundation for further optimization of planning and dispatching processes at eurobahn and will support the company in meeting future operational challenges.

The year 2025 is drawing to a close. For the entire rail industry, it has once again been a year full of changes, announcements, and challenges. All the more reason for us to take this opportunity to thank all our users and partners for your trust and the great collaboration throughout the year.

For our team at Qnamic, 2025 was also a year full of valuable experiences and changes: We continuously developed our RailOpt platform, participated in exciting training sessions, and reconnected with many familiar faces at the User Group meeting in Mannheim. But even beyond the meeting, there were numerous encounters—both digital and in person—where we had productive (and sometimes personal) conversations with our users.

A big thank you also goes out to our team for the dedication and ideas that made this year possible. We look forward to taking on new challenges and further optimizing processes together with you in the coming year.

We wish you a relaxing and on-time journey into the holiday season.

Stay on track this holiday season – from all of us at Qnamic.

R2025.1 introduced extensive optimizations with the completely redesigned “Report Duty Changes” feature, especially enhancing collaboration between train drivers and dispatchers. Another highlight was the significant simplification of planning during route interruptions that result in cancellations or rail replacement services (see also: QnamicRelease 2025.1 • QNAMIC ).

Following the comprehensive expansions in the spring, this release focuses on detailed optimization. Numerous UI and performance improvements have been implemented. However, there are also functional advancements: The planning simplifications for route interruptions introduced in the last release have been further refined with the new “Replace Train Section” workflow. Train sections can now be replaced directly from the planning board. All relevant train run data is automatically transferred, and possible alternatives are suggested. Once confirmed by the planner, the new plan is adopted, the old train section is archived, and the process is documented. This step is now significantly faster and, thanks to the automatic transfer of existing data, error-free.

With R2025.2, an ambitious project was also completed, aligning traffic planning more closely with vehicle maintenance planning. Until now, vehicle orders had to be managed via Excel spreadsheets and initiated by email or phone with the transport control center. This mainly affected orders placed by the ECM (Entity in Charge of Maintenance), for example, to schedule vehicles for regular overhauls or wheelset replacements. This ordering process has now been digitized through interfaces: Vehicle orders can now be triggered from a specialized workshop system within the Order Management module. The interfaces were implemented generically using a common language, making it easy to connect systems from different manufacturers (e.g., SAP, IBM, etc.) to RailOpt. Orders are managed within Order Management and treated like regular assignments. This allows maintenance departments, after completing their planning in their maintenance system, to order specific vehicles (by vehicle number) for certain times and schedule them for overhauls. The order is considered in the planning, and the processing status is reported back to the system by the transport control center. Naturally, orders can also be edited or canceled.

We would like to thank our team for their dedicated work and our active user community for their constructive contributions to these developments. As always: After the release is before the release!

We are already looking forward to introducing more innovative features and developments with R2026.1!

CFL, a Luxembourg-based railway company, is fully committed to digital innovation. As a long-time RailOpt user, it was a natural step to implement Qnamic’s AI-based crew scheduling solution, which quickly led to complete and high-quality crew assignments. Creating a duty roster at CFL is a highly complex allocation process that must take into account not only working time regulations, but also qualifications such as vehicle knowledge, route knowledge, and, as an additional challenge at CFL, country-specific expertise. Previously, this was a time-consuming and error-prone task for planners. The “DSS Automated Crew Scheduling” module from RailOpt now handles this job with configurable AI algorithms, supporting planners by generating the most conflict-free crew assignments possible. What used to take several days each month is now prepared in just a few minutes. As a result, more efficient schedules are created in less time.

Serge Daems, Head of Service Activité Voyageurs Trains | AV, CFL, says:

“With automated crew scheduling, CFL is taking its workforce planning to a whole new level: Our teams create high-quality schedules with unbeatable speed—simply and efficiently. A true success story, and as CFL, we are extremely satisfied with this solution.“

Right on time for spring, the RailOpt Release R2025.1 has arrived. As always, we have put a lot of creativity and effort into the new release to make RailOpt even faster, better, and more user-friendly.

At this point, we would like to introduce two highlights from this release cycle, which further improve collaboration between train drivers and the control center and support the work of planners.

Report Service Changes:

The previous feature “Edit Services” has been thoroughly revamped and is now called “Report Service Changes.” Additionally, we have added some exciting features, three of which we would like to introduce here:

• Breaks on Trains: Train drivers can conveniently add unscheduled breaks via the web solution without interrupting the train’s schedule. Dispatchers always have an up-to-date overview, and rest times are calculated directly. This is a flexible and precise solution—especially in the dynamic cargo business.

• Create/Delete Tasks: Train drivers can now easily create or delete tasks via their web solution. Dispatchers receive planning adjustments based on the situation on-site without any additional communication effort.

• Travel Times Before/After Duty: With the revised feature, travel times outside of duty hours can now be easily scheduled and calculated.

• These feature enhancements further increase user-friendliness, give dispatchers an even more accurate overview, and make the calculation of break and travel times more precise.

Planning Assistance for Track Interruptions:

Another highlight of this release cycle is the expanded function that saves planners and dispatchers a lot of work in the event of track interruptions. If an interruption is scheduled for a route, resulting in a cancellation or replacement service, RailOpt can automatically adjust vehicle planning. RailOpt schedules the original train from the interruption point at the operating location, including vehicle turnaround or personnel resources, to the defined replacement or cancellation resources. This saves the planner many planning steps and relieves them in managing this complex situation.

Once again, our team was able to turn a lot of constructive feedback from our active user community into innovative solutions with this release. We remain committed to making the daily lives of railroaders easier and thus advancing the railroad as a whole. We are also pursuing this goal with the upcoming Release R2025.2.

On June 4th and 5th, the annual RailOpt User Group Meeting took place – this time in the “City of Squares,” Mannheim. Once again, numerous participants from various railway companies came together to exchange ideas on current developments, challenges, and solutions related to RailOpt. Among them were many familiar faces, but also some new ones.

The event began with a review of the latest release highlights, which once again offered exciting innovations and improvements – both for scheduling specifically and for operations in general.

This year, the thematic focus was primarily on substitute transportation concepts, Redesign of Path Ordering, complex services, and master data management. This led to lively discussions where attendees shared their practical experiences with these topics. In addition to a brief review and discussions on current issues, there was also a preview of the planned module redesigns in RailOpt.

As in previous years, guest lectures provided a fresh perspective and insights into the practical application of RailOpt at individual railway companies. Special thanks go to Silvan Zeiter, who offered an exciting glimpse into the planning processes of the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn through the shadow train concept, and Frederic Schiltz, who reported on the introduction of stabling planning at CFL. (See also: On the right track: CFL implements digital depot planning by Qnamic • QNAMIC)

In addition to the professional input, the informal part of the event, as always, provided numerous opportunities for engaging conversations and networking – even on a personal level. The two days flew by, and we are already looking forward to the next User Group Meeting!

A heartfelt thank you to all participants for their great commitment and inspiring contributions!

We are happy to announce that we became a member of the German industry association mofair in May. By joining, we are underscoring our commitment to digitalization in the railway sector—especially in one of Europe’s most central railway markets, whose developments have an impact far beyond national borders.

With our fully integrated resource management system, RailOpt, we bring over 20 years of project experience in train operations in the DACH region as well as in-depth expertise in implementing complex European regulations and requirements—such as those related to TAF/TAP TSI or labor law regulations. Especially in these areas, we are currently witnessing a great deal of uncertainty in the industry, which we address with practical solutions and hands-on experience.

We have been following mofair’s active, critical, and well-founded positioning with interest for some time. We are therefore all the more pleased to now contribute our perspective as a member—with the goal of working together to make competition conditions in rail transport more transparent and to drive digitalization forward in a targeted manner.

The Fall Release 2024.2 brings numerous innovations that are not immediately visible but have a significant impact on user experience. While the Spring Release 2024.1 focused on functional changes, this time it’s all about speed and usability. Numerous new selection (e.g., multi-selection during status changes in the schedule across multiple sections), configuration, and query options reduce repetitive tasks and accelerate planning work. Overall, we have been able to further optimize the system’s performance in many areas. For instance, response times for master data configurations and updating the schedule board after real-time train imports have been significantly shortened.

However, R2024.2 is not limited to improving user experience and performance. This release also includes functional enhancements that directly optimize planning processes. With common language, it is now possible to connect RailOpt to Open Journey Planner systems. The interface allows direct querying and planning of public transport connections from the schedule board. Planners can, for example, schedule duty trips within seconds. If a train driver needs to travel to their assignment location, the dispatcher can find and schedule the optimal travel route for the driver with just a few clicks. In this example, connection data is retrieved via a link to the SBB app:

In addition to performance and functionality, software security is crucial, especially for railway companies that are part of critical infrastructure and subject to special security requirements. Since the 2024.1 release, users of RailOpt WEBapplications can already log in via OpenID Connect (OIDC). With the 2024.2 release, this option is now also available for the RailOpt client. Thus, the proven OIDC identity authentication protocol can also be used to control client access while better protecting user identities. A final change in the Fall Release worth mentioning is the migration to Jakarta EE. With this step, we have laid a solid foundation for future developments. This allows us to benefit from continuous advancements by an active developer community in the Java ecosystem. Although this innovation is not immediately apparent, it will manifest in the future by enabling us to continue developing and presenting robust and scalable software solutions.

We thank our team for their dedicated work and the active user community for their constructive feedback, which directly flows into the development process. After the release is before the release, and we are already looking forward to introducing more innovative features and developments with R2025.1 soon!