Roadmap for railML

by Joyce Dillon (railML.org) (comments: 0)

After more than 15 years of development, the coordinators and developers find themselves at yet another milestone. RailML 2 is a stable and mature baseline used widely in the railway sector, while railML 3 continues to transform into our most complete baseline yet. To make sure everyone is up to date, I’d like to share what our developers are planning in relation to the future railML releases and some other dates of importance.

Roadmap for railML® 2.5

At railML.org, we strive to bring a high-quality standard to the railway industry and are therefore investing a lot of manpower in the development of railML 3. This is the reason why the coordinators and stakeholders decided to make railML 2.5 the last railML 2 version that will be released. If you have any demands from your company, please let us now. Furthermore, any suggested improvements or missing properties needed after railML 2.5 will be implemented in railML 3. 

This decision was made public at the 36th railML Conference in Brussels this past November after communication with the community and railway sector and these are the next steps in the development of railML 2.5:

"Last orders" and feature freeze: August 30th, 2020
Alpha-release: September 14th, 2020
Beta-release: October 26th, 2020
Release candidate: November 23th, 2020
Proposed release date: December 13th, 2020

However, if there is a strong demand for a follow-up version and workforce is provided, a follow-up railML 2.6 version should not be completely excluded.

Roadmap for railML® 3.2

railML 3.2 will include the features found in version 3.1 plus new Infrastructure use cases and, for the first time, Timetable-features. The focus currently lies on the following use cases: "Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS)," in which Timetable plays an important role and the IS/IL "ETCS Track Net" use case and its required elements, e.g. balise, traction properties, etc. The release cycle that our developers are aiming for will be of about 1-2 years between versions and the proposed beta-release date for railML 3.2 is around the end of 2020.

The meetings focusing on Infrastructure usually take place once a month per use case. Please find the dates on the Events page, where you will also be able to sign up.

Next meetings (Timetable)

Below, you can find the topics of the upcoming Timetable developer meetings in connection with railML 3.2. We kindly invite you to take part in them and actively participate in the development of railML as this is the best way to ensure that it will truly be an industry standard.

  • Validities and Connections: January 21st, 2020 (Dresden)
  • Train number assignment and stop details: April 21st, 2020 (KarlsruheBerlin → Virtual)
  • Trains and train parts: June 15th, 2020 (Bern or BerlinKarlsruhe → Virtual)
  • Rolling Stock and Train Categories: August 24th, 2020 (Virtual)
  • tbd and Rolling Stock: Oktober 27th, 2020 (Virtual)
  • Blocks and Circulations: November 26th, 2020 (Virtual)
  • Proposed alpha-release: End of 2020

As always, thank you for reading and we would be happy to have your feedback on any or all of the above-mentioned points.

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