On the 8th of May 2019 the Hungrail Hungarian Railway Association organized the Railway Academy Conference for the third time at the Sugár Event Center. The event is the most important spring event for the domestic rail sector. It’s a good platform for participants to learn about current domestic and international trends, to get guidance on major issues in the industry, and to get in touch with representatives from ministries, regulators, and unions.
Dr. Róbert Homolya, Chairman and CEO of MÁV Zrt., President of Hungrail, greeted participants and then Dr.László Mosóczi, State Secretary for ITM Transport Policy, gave an opening speech. Talks were divided into 3 sections. Mr László Horváth, President of CER Hungary Zrt.,gave his presentation in section 2 on ’Digitising Rail Freight’.
In his presentation, Mr Horváth said that with the change of railway-technology conditions, CER Hungary Zrt. had to change its existing business strategy so that the rail-freight service would not slow down or even come to a halt. While doing this he began building his own resources, buying CER locomotives and hiring drivers. As a result of the increase in traffic, it became clear that it was time to introduce an IT system supporting rail freight.
In several steps, but ultimately from the firm’s own resources, cooperating with many developers, it was possible to create the kind of support system he’d hoped for called Railway Integrated System (RIS). RIS is a sophisticated system that includes all rail-related activities for which different modules have been developed. Later he described the functions of each module and then outlined the benefits of the system for the owner, user, and client. CER Hungary Zrt has been using RIS for two years now and is also in test operation at a Slovak subsidiary. The graphic uswer interface is being translated into Czech, Romanian, Croat, and English. Of course a further objective would be to introduce this programme in further countries across Europe.
The main goal of the event was to induce the leaders and market players of the railway sector to reconsider and act on common ideas and actions by outlining strategic ideas, related tasks and the most pressing problems, among others the current and future railway infrastructure development plans of Hungary, the transit role of rail freight and to reduce labor shortages.