Case Study: Dutch Railways achieves more reliable train service and predictive maintenance with TIBCO Software

Higher customer satisfaction, predictive maintenance, IT leadership

Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS), the Netherlands’ principal passenger operator serving about 1.1 million daily riders, needed to standardize and modernize onboard IT across more than 800 trains and nine different train types. To win its next government concession and deliver more reliable service, NS sought a scalable, synchronized platform to collect and act on real‑time sensor and GPS data from both new and legacy trains to improve customer experience, operations, and maintenance.

NS implemented a TIBCO‑based “virtual train” architecture (streaming analytics, in‑memory computing, integration and messaging) to guarantee onboard/on‑shore synchronization and no message loss. The platform powers a mobile app for live train locations and seat availability, enables predictive maintenance alerts to NedTrain, shares enriched GPS data with ProRail, and has improved on‑time performance and customer satisfaction—while spawning nearly 50 new IT projects and making it much easier to roll out new services.

Dutch Railways

Wim Liet

Program Manager for IT on Trains