Why Now? A Critical Juncture for Fleet-Wide Reliability Under Pressure
2025–2026 is a defining period for European rail operators—not because a single disruptive technology has arrived, but because the entire fleet, across all life stages, is under pressure to perform.
Whether it's new rolling stock coming online with advanced digital capability, mid-life assets needing smarter maintenance, or legacy units still in daily service, operators face the same expectation:
deliver higher reliability, minimise disruption, and do it all while controlling cost.
The challenge isn’t just about deploying new systems—it’s about making the whole fleet work harder, smarter, and longer. Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is moving into the mainstream as a pragmatic middle ground between preventative and fully predictive models. Though predictive solutions remain limited in deployment, often seen as not yet operationally proven, CBM has emerged as a pragmatic and scalable approach—particularly effective for critical failure points such as brakes, couplers, and doors.
Yet even as tools mature, key obstacles persist: depot workflows often aren’t ideally configured for real-time data, alerts are inconsistently acted on, and frontline teams can be mismatched to digital maturity. And although the technologies vary—ERTMS, CBTC, DAC, hybrid propulsion—the integration headaches are strikingly similar.
Bridging Passenger and Freight: One Event, Two Critical Agendas
We've made the strategic decision to bring our rolling stock maintenance and depot innovation platform to Frankfurt—and crucially, to broaden its scope. What began as a focus on mainline, metro, and regional passenger fleets now includes a dedicated freight stream.
Condition, Predictive or Time-Based?
Yes, freight and passenger operators face distinct operational realities—but the strategic dilemma is common: when should you use predictive, CBM, or stick with time-based regimes? Whether it’s traction units, hybrid sets, or legacy stock, both sectors are actively rethinking how maintenance models apply across fleet lifecycles.
The Format: One Event, Three Interconnected Days
Day 1: Passenger Reliability & Maintenance
Mainline, regional, and metro operators share real-world strategies for predictive integration, retrofit sequencing, and managing fleet diversity across different regimes.
Day 2: Depot Day – Freight + Passenger Streams
Split tracks for freight and passenger—but with intentional cross-pollination. This is where alert-driven workflows, depot redesign, and digital tool implementation are explored in detail.
Day 3: Freight Operational Readiness & Predictive Scale-Up
Focused entirely on the freight sector. Covers DAC, CBM rollout, and the organisational leap required to make data actually change behaviour on the ground.
Common Challenge: Predictive, Condition, or Time-Based?
Across the agenda, you’ll learn:
- How to align maintenance models with fleet age, system maturity, and traction type
- Which CBM tools deliver ROI—and which need deeper workforce trust
- How to adapt depot workflows to support real-time visibility (alerts, dashboards, prioritisation)
- What’s worked in EV battery monitoring, brake system diagnostics, bogie insights, and coupler health
From Lessons to Leverage: What Operators Wish They’d Known
The most valuable stories often come from frontline experience.
You’ll hear directly from operators who’ve navigated:
- Asset life extension under pressure
- Smart overhaul sequencing
- Predictive alert rollout failures (and how they recovered)
- Depot reconfigurations they’d now approach differently
Key learning takeaways:
- How retrofit projects planned sequencing across mixed fleets
- What depot layouts supported CBM adoption—and what compromises were required
- How alert maturity was phased by asset class and traction
- Where governance or culture slowed execution—and how others unblocked it
Integration is the Hard Part: It’s Not Just the System, It’s the Shift
Our recent ETCS Business Readiness event made one thing clear: installing new systems is the easy part. Embedding them into live operations is the hard bit.
That’s why this event includes dedicated sessions on:
- Cross-functional rollout strategies across depot and central ops
- How to upskill or reassign roles to match data-enabled workflows
- Simulation as a training tool—especially for CBTC, DAC, depot operational readiness and predictive tools
- How to balance tech maturity with workforce and depot readiness
- Fixing internal incentives when alert fatigue or change resistance slows progress
DAC and the Freight Readiness Gap
On the freight side, the transition to DAC is more than hardware. It forces a total rethink of freight maintenance and depot design—especially for cross-border operators. Yet freight is still behind passenger in predictive maturity.
That’s why this agenda gives freight a platform to:
- See what early CBM adopters have learned about scaling
- Understand the practical depot and training implications of DAC
- Learn how EU policy is accelerating change—and how to align with it
- Avoid the delay cycles others experienced by leveraging cross-sector insight