During Covid, the government provided unprecedented support to keep the railways running. Today, systems need overhauling and fundamental changes implemented for railways to survive, remain competitive, meet future demand, and support the transition to greener transport.

Railways must transform but they are not alone

Railway sector organisations must deliver agile ways of working that improve productivity, operational efficiency and enable organisations to migrate away from rigid legacy systems. They have to do this while keeping operational costs low.

Many other parts of the travel and transport sector face similar challenges. Many airports rely on old legacy systems and processes. For example, Copenhagen Airport faced many of these challenges before it embarked on a radical digital transformation programme. Working with Netcompany, Copenhagen airport implemented a ‘smarter airport’ solution – AIRHART. AIRHART has moved it away from the legacy Amadeus system, dramatically improved punctuality, and drastically reduced waiting times through better forecasting and turnaround management. The new AIRHART solution allows for more efficient use of existing resources. It has enabled the airport to increase throughput and raise passenger numbers. All the while making a considerable reduction in IT costs and meeting its sustainability goals.

The barriers remain for many organisations

However, legacy systems are one of the biggest barriers to change for many organisations, and this isn’t unique to the railway industry. Even though there has been a lot of talk about the pandemic accelerating digital transformation initiatives, the reality is that many companies are still running on mainframes. 

Equally, no organisation should try to simply ‘shift and lift’ to a new system. At the same time, they don’t want to tinker with parts of the system without a thorough understanding, as this can invite a lot of business risk. So, legacy must be approached extremely carefully.

Moving away from the mainframe is possible

The obvious answer for migrating away from cumbersome legacy systems is to look for modern, off the shelf solutions. To do this, you need to extract the valuable data and rearchitect this on another more composable platform. A composable software architecture empowers organisations to move from an all-in-one system to highly-customisable and flexible, ‘best of breed’ applications ready-made for the future.

Netcompany's business model is based on an exceptionally effective approach that assembles and reassembles flexible, independent solutions for reuse to deliver different critical business functions across the enterprise.

"Using our very own Netcompany Composable Enterprise Framework, we enable companies to offload their legacy onto new modern platforms with optimised processes, a data-driven culture and a customer-centric business model. Our tried and tested approach, utilising modules and accelerators means we can quickly build on existing systems, rapidly delivering projects at highly competitive prices.

Our unique delivery model and Composable Enterprise Framework is changing and accelerating how rail companies, and their customers, are using technology. Streamlining passenger flow and passenger management, making transportation better and safer for society at large." Says Richard.

Dive into the Netcompany Composable Enterprise Framework: The Future is Composable

Check out the full article: Driving innovation in transportation systems, propelling them into the future