Capacity Intelligence

The path can be considered as the economic unit of railway capacity. It expresses the interaction between infrastructure, timetable, market demand, operations and construction works. The ability to assess its value, feasibility, and system-wide impact is becoming increasingly important for stakeholders across the railway system.

The new European Capacity Regulation makes this reality explicit. Strategic capacity planning processes will lead to the following mandatory outputs with increasing levels of detail: capacity strategies, capacity models and capacity supply plans. They require Infrastructure Managers (IMs) to look beyond the annual timetable and manage capacity in a continuous, transparent and coordinated process. Temporary Capacity Restrictions (TCRs), market needs, operational quality and timetable robustness must now be considered earlier, across longer planning horizons and with a clear view of their network-wide effects. Furthermore, the performance must be measured and a variety of KPIs published, which will be monitored by a new European body.

This is exactly where SMA brings distinctive value. For more than 30 years, we have helped institutional railway stakeholders (Public Authorities, Infrastructure Managers, Railway Undertakings) understand capacity not as an isolated timetable question, but as a systemic challenge. Service concepts, infrastructure designs, rolling stock assets, operations, maintenance & renewals and investment programmes must be planned in a coordinated and coherent manner. Only then can valuable network capacity be used in a way that supports market needs, service quality goals, operational stability, efficiency of planned works and desired long-term developments.

SMA’s extensive experience in strategic long- and medium-term planning provides tangible benefits here for Infrastructure Managers. Our flexible approach involves the gradual refinement of data and planning precision over time. Train paths and construction works are handled consistently: both share limited network capacity, so both must be visible, comparable, and adjustable within a single planning environment. This allows IMs to model scenarios, test variants, assess robustness, and integrate TCRs seamlessly, leading to decisions that produce a high-quality customer offer while making effective use of the available network resources.

In this context, SMA also helps Government Ministries define their Strategic Guidance as required by the new EU Capacity Regulation, translating transport policy objectives into implementable strategies and planning frameworks. Working closely with Public Authorities, we also provide the expertise needed to shape service offerings and competition frameworks that maximise the value of capacity for the stakeholders.

Based on SMA’s railway system expertise, we also support Railway Undertakings (RUs) define their capacity needs, assess capacity models and anticipate future capacity supply and TCRs from the IMs, and to position their services effectively within the new strategic and medium-term planning processes. This helps them design service offerings that best meet customer needs and maximise revenues, while optimising operations to minimise operating costs

Our planning system, Viriato Enterprise, was built for these use cases and has been proven effective in a wide range of both SMA’s consulting projects and numerous external client deployments. Dedicated product management and development processes ensure that Viriato stays aligned with market needs and SMA retains crucial technical expertise.

With Capacity Intelligence, SMA helps all the railway institutional stakeholders move from simple compliance with regulations to real implementation of capacity processes maximising the value of scarce capacity. We connect systemic railway understanding, proven planning methods and software-supported decision-making to industrialised processes that are transparent, robust and ready for Europe’s future railway system.