RailTopoModel

The development of the RailTopoModel is a result of the ERIM project (abbreviation for European Rail Infrastructure Modelling, previously referred as European Rail Infrastructure Masterplan) within UIC that aimed at standardized data representation and exchange concerning railway networks.

[4] In 2013, starting from the assessment of a small group of Railway infrastructure managers about limitation of current exchange formats for ETCS, RINF, Inspire, and European projects based on network topology, the UIC ERIM feasibility study[5] was launched.

The objective of this working group was to qualify the business needs, analyze the existing solutions and experiences, and propose a project plan to build a universal "language" to improve the railway data exchange, and support the design of an infrastructure data exchange format based on topology.

[8] railML.org, a European open source initiative providing a standard for data exchange in railway networks since 2001, has offered the first use case for RailTopoModel through a new version of its infrastructure schema, railML3.

[6] Its emphasis lies on: Ideally, standardisation should grant for references and switches between aggregation levels being bijective and different applications being able to exchange data.