Swiss Federal Railways wants to replace Russian positioning system by end of 2025

The Swiss Federal Railways wants to replace a Russian positioning system by the end of 2025. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss Federal Railways would like to replace the positioning systems of the Russian company Infotrans by the end of 2025. However, this will cost CHF900,000 ($1.05 million) more than expected, the railways said.

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Although the sanctions against Russia, which Switzerland supports, played a role in this, the federal railways said it had already taken measures independently of the sanctions in spring 2022 in order to become independent of the supplier.

According to the federal railways, the positioning systems locate condition data recorded on the route network, which is collected by various measurement and inspection systems using the diagnostic vehicles. In this way, any changes in the condition of the rails can be detected. The data is very specific and can only be used for the maintenance of the rail network, it added. It emphasised that the data collected did not go to a server belonging to Infotrans or any other Russian company.

+ Switzerland expands its list of sanctions against Russia

According to the federal railways, it had received an exceptional permit from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) to obtain services for the support and maintenance of the systems.

Additional costs

Now a separate, equally functional system is to replace that of Infotrans, as previously reported by Blick.

Around CHF2 million had initially been earmarked for the system, but due to the greater technical complexity of the software and the additional time required, additional costs are now to be expected, a spokesperson told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA. According to him, however, the costs for a separate system would be offset over the next five years.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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