The XVI International Conference “Information technologies for rail transport” and the Infotrans 2011 exhibition, organised by Business Dialogue with Russian Railways acting as general partner, took place from 10 to 13 October in St Petersburg.

The Infotrans 2011 conference opened with a Plenary Session, with leaders of RZD departments and heads of leading IT companies taking part. The discussion here focused on issues related to increasing efficiency in managing the maintenance of the Russian Railways infrastructure on the basis of integrated IT solutions, optimising the IT complex of Russia’s railways, and the prospects for using satellite navigation systems in transport, and the session also examined international experience in improving the management of transport company infrastructure assets. Alexei Illarionov emphasised in his speech that ensuring systematic linkages between the improvement and regulation of processes, optimising cooperation between RZD’s organisational structures and developing information technologies is one of the priority areas in the development and modernisation of the holding company. Ken Donnelly focused attention on areas such as the development of information support for transport services customers and the need to apply the latest safety systems in rail transport, on which increasing the efficiency of the whole industry’s work is directly dependent.

Welcoming speeches were made at the Infotrans 2011 exhibition formal opening ceremony by Alexei Illarionov, head of RZD’s Department of IT and Corporate Process Management, and Anatoly Kitsura, director general of Business Dialogue. Alexei Illarionov noted the importance of Infotrans as an effective arena for developing solutions and approaches for automation in the transport industry. “This year we are again seeing enormous interest in the event on the part of leading players in the market for information technologies for the transport industry,” Anatoly Kitsura confirmed.

The exhibition presented not only the best developments in the field of information technologies for transport in the past year, but also quite a few upcoming technologies. Such leaders in the IT business as Cisco Systems, Xerox, SAS, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Design, Technoserv, Infotecs, TransTeleCom and others demonstrated their products. The huge interest on the part of specialists and the busy work on the stands gives reason to believe that in the nearest future the majority of the products presented at Infotrans 2011 will be introduced into various areas of the railway industry. This will have an equally positive effect on the functional efficiency of RZD’s infrastructure and on the quality of services received by customers.

Alexei Illarionov and Valery Vishnyakov, director of the Main Computer Centre, a branch of RZD, replied to questions from journalists at a press conference devoted to the opening of the Infotrans 2011 exhibition and conference. Valery Vishnyakov noted the importance of implementing RZD’s infrastructure modernisation programme with the use of modern information technologies: “Work in this area is due to be completed by the end of next year.”

Tools to ensure the efficient functioning of RZD infrastructure facilities; economic, organisational and technological aspects of the infrastructure, and also tools for monitoring technological discipline and optimising the use of resources in rail transport were discussed by participants in the “Managing infrastructure facilities in the transport industry” discussion. Leaders of structural divisions of RZD and heads of leading IT companies examined the main trends in improving asset management in transport companies in Russia and other countries and the most sought-after IT solutions for transport companies, and the economic advantages of implementing business process automation projects in the RZD infrastructure.

The themes of the Plenary Session and discussion were continued by the “Managing production and infrastructure facilities”, “Industry-wide and inter-agency electronic cooperation” and “IT resources management” streams. The most promising developments were described by specialists and experts from companies such as Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, ЕМС, Nienschanz, Informzaschita, Infotecs and AMT Group. Reports were also presented by leaders of regional departments of the Main Computer Centre (a branch of RZD) and representatives of science.

The central event of the second day of the conference was the expert dialogue “Effective infrastructure management for improved transportation”. Alexei Illarionov talked about practical examples of the influence of computerisation on optimising rail transport at the “infrastructure level” and particularly emphasised the need to introduce new approaches to implementing IT development projects in the transport industry and to automating the management of RZD infrastructure facilities. Alexander Timchenko, general director of the Industry Centre for Introducing New Equipment and Technologies, and Ivan Chalei, deputy head of the information technologies directorate for Surgutneftegas, gave presentations on the experience of introducing the latest IT solutions in their enterprises.

The issues and objectives which participants in the expert dialogue touched on were developed in the themed streams. The “Informatisation as a guarantee for high-quality transportation” stream discussed tools for creating and efficiently utilising IT systems in order to improve industry-wide and inter-agency coordination of transport and rail business structures, and the prospects for introducing cutting-edge developments in the field of automating the transport process. Participants in the “Building IT architecture”  stream, the moderator of which was Yuri Karadzhov, director of business development for transport for IBM EMEA, examined issues related to information security, familiarised themselves with innovations in the field of IT infrastructure management, and studied positive experience of introducing IT developments in rail transport. Staffing issues in railway industry businesses were examined by participants in the “IT experts training for transport sector” stream. Leaders of RZD departments and branches and representatives of leading transport-related higher education establishments discussed the prospects for developing the staff potential of the RZD IT complex and the main trends in the labour market in the IT sphere. The event succeeded in defining effective forms of cooperation between rail transport-related higher education establishments and RZD in training IT specialists for the transport industry.

The information technologies and IT products which were presented and discussed at the “Information technologies for rail transport” conference and the Infotrans 2011 exhibition are essential factors in the RZD modernisation programme and are already being actively introduced in the holding company’s infrastructure.

Infotrans 2011 official website: www.intransforum.ru