Indra says it is installing rail traffic software in Estonia

Spanish technology company Indra says it is implementing its traffic management system in Estonia as part of the modernisation of the country’s rail network. Indra said the system contributes to safer, more efficient and increasingly digitalised railway operations.

The comment followed Irish Rail’s decision on 17 July to terminate Indra’s contract to develop a traffic management system for trains across the Irish network. The project was several years behind schedule and had run significantly over budget. The state-owned company had earlier written down by €50 million the value of its investment in a new national train control centre, largely because of problems with that system.

Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien told the Oireachtas transport committee that the contract went to a company that had never previously delivered such a system and did not own the intellectual property involved. He called that “crazy” and said the procurement arrangements were fundamentally where the problems began. He said the issue was being addressed very seriously and that he was waiting for advice from the National Transport Authority on how to proceed. He added that the project is needed for efficiency across train services.

O’Brien said he was comfortable with the governance arrangements in place now, while saying there were absolute learnings that have to be made. Committee chairman Michael Murphy asked him to commit to a review of governance at Irish Rail and raised questions about oversight by Irish Rail and the National Transport Authority. O’Brien agreed that this formed part of the work programme.

The Minister said there were no issues with another large Indra technology project, a contactless system for buying tickets for buses, rail and the Luas.

Indra told The Irish Times that its traffic management system had been successfully deployed and was operating in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Lithuania, and that those countries had repeatedly expressed confidence in the technology. Indra has previously blamed Irish Rail for the project’s handling, saying the state company relied too heavily on external advisers, that critical knowledge of the Irish network’s characteristics and limitations was not comprehensively documented or systematically shared, and that key staff who would use the system were not actively involved until the fifth year.