Planning and dispatching system for Via Rail Canada

VIA Rail operates passenger rail services in eight of Canada’s ten provinces. Around 500 trains are operated every week on a route network of ca. 12,500 kilometres. In the country with the second-largest surface area in the world, the trains often have to cover considerable distances to reach their destination. In order to provide a smooth service on board, the trains are usually staffed with several teams made up of drivers and train crew. 

The software solution IVU.rail, which has been specifically developed by IVU Traffic Technologies AG to meet the requirements of railway companies, will help to centralise the complex duty scheduling and optimise the dispatch of resources. The system also supports North American features like seniority bidding for preferred duties: duty requests made by longer-serving personnel have priority over those made by their more recently-recruited colleagues.

“We are proud to have been chosen as the winner of this worldwide call for tender and will now support another major national railway,” says Oliver Grzegorski, Head of Development at IVU. “This emphasizes once again, that we know the needs of railway companies throughout the world and provide the adequate solution with our standard software IVU.rail.”