Yes, let's start. Thank you for being here late. It's difficult to go after my colleague
because my subject is more lighter than his. Nevertheless, we'll try to answer to the question
why OSRD, the French infrastructure manager, has started an open source project.
So first of all, this is the S&CF Resort. This is a railway infrastructure manager in France.
That means that this company is responsible for the operation and maintenance of 36,000
kilometers of tracks on which 15 trains are running per day. That means 2 billion passengers a year,
almost 100 million tons of freight per year. This company has to face several challenges.
First of course, we want to be on time for the decarbonization of transport.
We want to increase the traffic and as we are a public company, we want to optimize our infrastructure
investment because we use public money. And I think that's why we are in this room today.
And of course, we want to be competitive to plane and road at European scale. For example,
in May I made a trip from Paris to Berlin. It spent nine hours by train. It's not possible now
that only for a thousand kilometers in Europe, you spend nine hours in a train. We do the same
in France and it's spent only three hours. So we have to do something and to show that at the
European scale that trains and railway can be competitive compared to plane and road, of course.
Or not. Sorry. So we need tools to show this problem and to solve our issues. But S&CF Resort
is not software vendors. And in the meantime, we can't find any software in the market that can
answer to our needs and to provide a solution to this specific challenge.
My team knows well this figure. What S&CF Resort here? We start with mobility needs. We design
the timetable and we sell space time. This is a slot where the train can run. And we produce in
real time by opening the tracks and switch the red light to green and the train can run. This is
what we are selling here. We earn money. And in the bottom here, there is a network where the train
can run. Then we have to build the network and we have to design this network. And it's because we
need capacity to make space time. So it's quite easy to understand. I think this representation of
our activity and where we need some help with the software is on the long-term planning by designing
the timetable here and manage several infrastructures, several models of infrastructure. And on the
real time or quite real time, we need to add some more trains. Even if we have planned all the trains
in the years ago, because here it started 10 years ago, even if we have planned some trains,
we want to be able to add more trains in the D-Day, for example, to be competitive to road,
especially for freight trains. Because when a company wants to send goods to a customer,
it has a choice of a truck on the road and a train. And if we say to the company, you have to ask a
train 10 years before you want to sell the goods, it won't work a lot. So we have to be able to answer
to this need in a very short time. So we developed our software, this is the topic of the talk,
and how it looks. So it looks like we have several infrastructures. This is the French
infrastructure here. It's coming from internal data. And we have a lot of data putting on the map.
And we have all the tracks and all the platform. And we are able to choose a starting point in Paris,
the station. And we want to go to Berlin, which is another infrastructure, but we don't have
access to this data. So we took the open street map data. There is a lot of data in Germany on
open street map. And with our tool, which is called OSRD, we are able to find a path in the
infrastructure and calculate the running time here. And with this calculation, we show at the
European scale that a train is able to take only four hours to go from Paris to Berlin.
This kind of tool doesn't exist yet, except in open source now.
The worst slide I ever made, it seems like a postcard from the 80s, but I just wanted to show
the issue with an example. And can you find the difference between the upper part of the slide
and the lower part of the slide? What is the difference? Not the obvious difference. It's
orange, it's white, okay. I know that. But what? No, no, not quite the same speed.
Yes, you're right, but it's not, it's obvious, too obvious, sorry.
Another one?
I have more trains power.
The power, no.
I have throughput. I have throughput. It's more trains power.
No, there is the difference here from here to here. It's 800 millions euro.
You can't find it in the picture, but if you want to transform your
high speed line from Paris to Lyon with 13 trains per direction to the same track,
or yes, of course, with a new rolling stock, but with 16 trains per direction,
it will cost 800 million euros. I have to think because it's a huge figure.
So, and for doing that, we need public money because we don't have money at the Sensei Frézot.
So, we need public money. And we, in the business plan, the three trains are part of the cost of the,
can find the cost of the 800 million euros. So, if we missed our studies, and if we, at the end,
there is only 15 trains or 14 trains, we put 800 million euros on the trash. So, we have to be
careful by doing that. We have to be careful with our studies and we have to be sure of what kind of
tool we use and we want to master it. So, as I said just before, we add software from vendors.
They are acting like back box. And we, to explain to the state that will give you, give us hundreds of
million euros, we have to be transparent and say that if we need money, it's for that. And it will cost
money because of that. So, we need to be transparent to explain everything. So, we have to, for now,
we share only maybe data, but now we need to share algorithm because the running time calculation between
for a train, which help us to know how long does it spend to go from Paris to Lyon.
You have several algorithms. Each software has an algorithm. You put the same data. You don't have,
never, you never have the same result at the end. And can you cut the mic? We have 14 running time
calculation algorithm at the S&C Friseaux. So, it's a big mess already internally. So, we have to
explain and to share the algorithm and to be able to explain what happens when you put data in and
what happened at the end. Of course, by the past, we make some worst study and we spend money
to, and we expect result and we never had this result, but we spend money. So, it's not a good
thing for you. So, we need to restore confidence. Reliability as a software, we need to be,
to track all the bugs. And if we share the code to the community, everybody is able to see the bug.
And I hope, correct the bug. And of course, we prevent security flows by opening the code.
By using, by opening the code, we expect that the IT integration will be more easy. And
because every companies, every railway companies, every country that want to
integrate the tool, OSRD, they can, they will be able to do it because the code is open,
the internal data model is open and you can, you take the tool and you connect with your own
database and it's quite easy to do. And of course, this is internally in each company and between
company, as the code is open, the data models are open, we want to facilitate interoperability
between the railway company in Europe and then we'll be able to do a train from Paris to Berlin.
I don't want to insist about that, but nine hours is too much. And of course, if we do
open source and the railway company invest, I don't want to people working for free, of course,
but if you are in another railway company, we can share the cost of the maintenance and
developing new features. And at the end, this saving will benefit to all the rest of the community
and of course, for the railway. And of course, if it's open, it allows and it
makes possible collaboration between companies, between a large community of developers
and we expect that some feature will come without any plan because people will see something and
they give ideas to developers and our companies and then there is an issue which is open and maybe
a proposal to develop a new feature and something unexpected can happen here and always to the
benefit of the railway system. And by opening again the code, we expect and we already working
with a community of possible contributors, other infrastructure managers in Europe.
We are starting a common project with the Swiss company. They have a long-term time
table tool. We try to plug these two tools and to have the possibility to make the timetable for the
train from 10 days before operation until the D-day. And we expect also contribution for
researchers. Researchers have a lot of ideas but they are working on their side. They don't have
access to data, they don't have access to algorithm but they develop very, very good algorithm,
optimization algorithm that could benefit to the railway system to reduce the impact of the railway
on the energy consumption, for example, or to reduce the cost of the operation of the railway, etc.
There is a lot of possibility to optimize the railway system.
So it seems to be nice but we have opportunities and threats. So again opportunity,
OSRD is very innovative in the railway sector and I think with the possibility to be shared by
two other railway companies, it will give some opportunities and we choose to create an open
source foundation around the railway software and it's called Open Rail, sorry, and it starts
last Monday, the operation of Open Rail Association, it's the name, starts last Monday and we hope that
it will benefit to the railway sector by giving a neutral area and give the confidence to other
railway companies to develop together. And of course as we said, it will help to the European
integration by offering European railway infrastructure and to show that the railway
could be competitive compared to plain and we have talked about standardization and
the main goal is to be competitive to other transport means. But we have a lot of threats
or a lot of reservation because people internally think that the running time calculation is an
industrial secret and running time calculation is Newton's second law and numerical integration.
So it's secret since 300 years, it's not secret since 300 years so I think we can share it.
But people still believe that it's secret. Sorry, we have to face a question about the market rules
which is very tough in the railway industry because we are not integrated in France, we have the
rail, the infrastructure manager and we have several railway companies, railway undertakers that operate
the train on the network and there is an issue if a railway company win tender, I didn't remember
the name, win a tender by the use of open source software, what is it possible or not, it's a
legal consideration that I don't manage of course. And there was a question about sovereignty but as
you see I made a line on it and it's over now because OSRD is the first project hosted by the
OpenRaid Foundation since yesterday. So it's good news for you, for us and for you also because it's
not an SNCF project now, it's a neutral project, it's open to the community and yeah you can work
on it, you can use it, you can contribute and we are waiting for you. Thank you, that's it for me.
And I think I have time for questions. We have about 10 minutes before they
start off the video so there's plenty of time for questions.
What kind of technology we are using? The older stack, the two guys that are,
the back end is in Java and Kotlin and Rust, I put Rust in the middle where but
Rust in the back middle and the front end is React and we use also some
map lib for the map and what else? What did I forget? Something? Oh yes, some Python also,
it's all technology yes and I didn't say it but it's a web app so we put that in a browser.
The license of OSRD is LGPLv3 which allows us to open the code of course and allows us also to keep
part of some modules, keep it closed and private if we want to keep it and it allows to the vendors
because we don't want to kill the vendors, it allows the vendors to keep, to take the core of the
OSRD and make business with their own module. That was our choice, yes.
Sorry.
When was the project created? It's very difficult to talk. This version of the project was created
three years ago. We were five, some more five and we are 50 now. We are founded by
European Union and French state and also SNCF Rezo. So that's why we can't be so,
such a big team, yes, we are 50 and we are in a beta test currently and we hope that we had
a V1 at the end of 2024.
Why is it hosted? It's hosted on GitHub and for now it's an OSRD project but maybe next week it
will be on Open Rail Association OSRD. We just have to make the move but it's official. We can
say we are an Open Rail Association project.
So if you use the software to kind of double check or maybe even challenge the calculations of other
competitors? Yes, the question is did we change, did we check or challenge the running time
calculation for example? Yes, we check with at least two big software when it's German,
the other one is Japanese and the difference between the running time calculation was very low,
0.4%, 0.4%, something like that.
And does the data usually, I mean, does the data of the infrastructure actually allow modeling
the real world that well?
So the question about the data, the data that are expected can model yes, the physics of the
train and make the calculation possible. Actually the quality of the data is not so good so we have to
make magic about it or be resilient about the quality of data but yes, almost all the data are
available. It's not very difficult to, there is 13 parameters for the running time calculation which
are very easy to find.
Yeah, I don't know.
What is my activity between Open Rail Association and SNSF Result? That was the question. I'm fully
employed by SNSF Result and I work at 100% for SNSF Result and the rest is for Open Rail Foundation.
Yes, I think now they're supported yes because we have this on Monday we have the first board
of directors and they are high level people they are making nice meetings so it's okay.
Now it's okay.
I don't know.
The reaction of software company, we have no reaction for now. I know that some are interested
to use the core and to make collaboration but that's it for now. I have no direct
interaction with the software company.
The previous algorithm you were using were provided by proprietary software from external
companies or were they already developed internally? The previous algorithm in SNSF Result was a homemade
in the 80s and it died three or four years ago and it has been replaced by a vendor software
and they try to respect the homemade algorithm and we now compare to these two algorithms and
yes and now it's a black box we don't know what happened.
Okay thank you very much for being late.