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Picture the scene. A startup gets ten minutes in front of a train operating company at an industry event. They've rehearsed the pitch, the slides are sharp. They spend the entire time selling something the operator has no authority to buy. The pitch is often strong. The technology is genuinely good. What the startup hasn't done is the basic work to understand who actually maintains the trains. In many cases, that function sits with the ROSCO or with a separate maintenance con

I've helped design supplier challenges for rail organisations over a number of years now. Some of them produced real operational outcomes. Others launched with energy and quietly disappeared within six months. The difference between the two is almost never about the quality of the startups who applied. It's about what happened in the design phase, weeks before anyone pitched. The pattern is consistent enough to describe. There are six things that, if I see them missing in the

The agentic AI market is exploding, projected to reach around $200 billion by 2034. It’s reported that in some industries, up to 80% of organisations have reported some level of agentic use. Rail isn't one of them. The gap isn't about tech maturity. The core capability already exists. I've watched pilot projects demonstrate what agentic systems can do when given the right environment. The frustration is that the digital backbone of the railway still reflects an earlier model

Ten years ago, I was frustrated. My background in transport planning had taught me something uncomfortable: if you want to improve rail through traditional means, you need enormous capital investment and years or planning process to deliver physical upgrades. Yet many passenger pain points weren't infrastructure problems at all. Better information, smarter digital tools, and more effective use of data could remove friction far more quickly. Technology looked like a faster rou

When Toronto’s Finch West LRT opened in 2025, the conversation did not centre on design quality. It centred on journey time. Within weeks, the line was being compared not to other rail systems, but to the bus it replaced and even to a runner along the corridor. What the design choices reveal The Finch West LRT was planned around short, local trips. Coverage mattered more than momentum. Stops are frequent and closely spaced across the 10.3-kilometre line. The vehicles move whe

I've watched cities invest millions in gleaming rail infrastructure and flood their streets with shared bikes and scooters. The hardware looks integrated. The reality feels anything but. What strikes me most is the precise moment when these systems stop talking to each other. You arrive at a modern station after a delayed train. Step outside and micromobility options sit right there, visible and available. Yet the rail system behaves as if that last leg does not exist. Journe