Indra will provide Feve's railway network with state-of-the-art traffic management system

Feve boosts its ambitious modernisation programme with the implementation of the Da Vinci system for railway traffic management. Indra, the premier IT company in Spain and a leading IT multinational in Europe was awarded two contracts to implement in cooperation with ADIF, a company dependent on the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, the new railway traffic management and control system of Feves network for a total amount exceeding euros 13,4 millions which is to be finished within 18 months. The company will implement state-of-the-art Da Vinci system, designed to meet the needs of high-speed trains and customised for the management of any kind of railway networks.

The railway company is heavily investing in new technologies, R+D+i, line electrification, security, renovation of mobiles, etc. Feve’s budgeted investment for 2008 amounts to € 101,7 millions, a 28% higher than last fiscal year and is expected to increase again next year thanks to a substantial increment of funds. The 2009 General State Budgets expects to reach € 124,45 millions in investment, a significant record-breaking amount for the second time.

Da Vinci integrates in real time the information provided by all those subsystems that affect network management, such as: power and signage control, train positioning, communications or railway surveillance and security. Operators will have access to a global vision of events in the network at all times thus will be able to decide and submit the necessary orders to manage its performance, which will facilitate their work. The traffic of the network that covers Ferrol-Bilbao-León, northern Spain, will be monitored at the control centres in Asturias and Cantabria and it will be supervised at the Bilbao centre.

The system was enhanced to meet the complexity and needs of Feve’s network by integrating the information provided by the GPS developed by Feve and installed on all trains. The information is integrated with the information collected at the traffic control centres to increase security and the response capacity in the event of incidents hence improving the quality of the services. Da Vinci’s scalability is another desirable feature since it allows Feve to perform progressive modernisation.

Indra customised its system according to the characteristics of Feve’s network which is used to transport goods and passengers. Passenger transport mainly deals with interurban transit with more than 10 million passengers a year although it also covers interregional transit. With the system already customised it can be used as a traffic management system of any kind of railway network as it is currently and successfully used to manage high-speed trains covering Madrid-Barcelona, Cordoba-Málaga and Madrid-Valladolid routes as well as the Medellín metro network in Colombia.

Da Vinci is a state-of-the-art railway control and management platform. Its development required a €30 Millions investment in R+D+I and involved 150 people in its design and preparation for four years. It is intellectual property of Adif while Indra is in charge of the maintenance and development of the platform in compliance with Adif’s requirements and needs.

Indra is Spain’s first IT multinational and one of Europe and Latin America’s most important. It is the second European company in its sector according to stock market capitalisation and it is also the second Spanish company with more investment in R+D. In 2007, revenues exceeded € 2,167M; a third part of it came from the international market. The company employs more than 24,000 professionals and has developed projects in more than 90 countries.