The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency is developing a digital twin to improve management and maintenance of roads, railways and waterways – Atostek’s consultants are on the job

At the heart of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency’s activities is information related to roads, railways and waterways. This covers everything from geometry to structures and equipment – not forgetting information on condition and project management data. The agency’s vision for the future is a digital twin of these networks, enabling, among other things, the use of artificial intelligence and advanced algorithms to aid development and enterprise resource planning.

The Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency develops and maintains the country’s roads, railways and waterways. Given the enormous size of this overall network, the role of data in managing it and guiding work becomes ever more important. Atostek’s consultants have worked for many years with the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency on a wide range of data management development projects.

For example, Atostek consultants support the agency by participating in various road, railway and waterway data system development projects in the role of configurators or technical project managers. They also bring their information systems and data architecture expertise to information systems procurement.

Recently, the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and Atostek have collaborated on projects such as goal assessment studies for road and waterway data management. These produced architectural descriptions of the goals and plans for the development of a digital twin. Based on the results of the studies, the development of road, railway and waterway data systems will be planned for the coming years, and completely new development projects will also be launched if necessary.

The construction and maintenance of roads, railways and waterways is a large-scale activity, both geographically and economically. In such an environment, the importance of knowledge-based management cannot be overemphasised. Investments in information and information systems bring multiple benefits, for example in terms of savings on maintenance and improvements in transport services and safety.

“Atostek has flexibly provided us with experienced and skilled IT architects, configurators and project managers. The consultants bring external expertise and insight to our development projects through their own experience, and act as a kind of workhorse in the projects,” says Reijo Prokkola, development manager at the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency’s information management department.