The Federal Railways aims to safeguard its operational autonomy and limit its dependence on individual IT providers.
Keystone-SDA
The Swiss Federal Railways is launching a tender process for its IT infrastructure. The plan is to award framework contracts covering a period of up to 20 years, with an annual value of around CHF100 million ($122 million).
The railway company published the first call for tenders on Monday on the simap.ch platform. Further tenders will follow until December 7, the firm stated, with contracts scheduled to be awarded in the first half of 2027. The contracts cover cloud services, data centres and platform services.
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Through this procurement process, the Federal Railways aims to safeguard its operational autonomy and limit its dependence on individual IT providers. The systems form the foundation for safety-critical areas such as rail operations, energy supply, ticketing and passenger information.
Three operating models
The plan is to combine three operating models: in addition to a shared public cloud and an exclusive private cloud, a “sovereign cloud” is envisaged. This will be subject either to Swiss law or to European Union regulations.
In mid-November, the company will also launch a new tender process for SAP services. These systems form part of the central IT infrastructure. The existing agreements are due to expire. The future framework agreements will have a term of five years, with an option to extend for a further three years at most.
IT modernisation
In addition, the Federal Railways plans to invest CHF7 billion in the digitalisation of rail infrastructure by 2045, the firm announced at the end of October. Significant parts of the safety-critical infrastructure will need to be renewed.
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The 2027 budget had earmarked CHF1 billion for the digitalisation of rail infrastructure. This would enable a “first important step”, the company said, but would be far from sufficient. According to its assessment, these funds would not be enough to implement all the measures commissioned by the transport ministry.
The ministry confirmed to the Keystone-SDA news agency the Federal Railways’ funding requirements for the digitalisation of rail transport (ERTMS). Funding is provided through various channels. The company emphasised that the money does not come from the same pot as the new contracts awarded via simap.ch.
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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
