DEPLOYING THE INTERNET OF THINGS ON
GERMANY’S DB RAILWAY SYSTEM
Deutsche Bahn AG (DB), German Railway, is one of the largest
transport and logistics companies in the world. DB Systel isDB’s internal Information and Communication Technology(ICT) partner, providing modern and efficient ICT products
and services on the national and international level.

The rail expertise

The rail expertise of DB Systel covers the whole lifecycle of ICTof DB Systel covers

solutions, from planning and development to operation andthe whole lifecycle

optimization. “Our goal is to be the company that integratesof ICT solutions,and enables digitalization at Deutsche Bahn,” says Alexander
Schmitt, Chief Architect at DB Systel.

from planning

For decades, the DB rail system solutions communicatedand development

via machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions, such as Short-to operation andMessage-Service (SMS). However, SMS systems have becomeoptimization.

expensive to run and maintain. A decision was made tomodernize them and replace the M2M technologies with
Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, making the railway

Our goal is to be
the company thatintegrates and enables
digitalization atDeutsche Bahn.

system more efficient and economical.

ADOPTING OPEN SOURCE
Once the decision was made to move towards more modernsolutions, different communication standards and protocols
were considered for creating the blueprint of future DBsolutions. After evaluation, DB adopted a mix of MQTT andHTTP as the communication standard between the trains andwayside monitoring systems.
The adoption of MQTT led DB to use Eclipse Paho’s open
source MQTT libraries. As a state-owned organization, DB is
subject to a regulatory system, which means that purchasing
proprietary software is complex. The freely available openiot.eclipse.org

source libraries made it easy for DB to utilize theturnaround cycles. In total, there is an estimated 600

MQTT clients for their different use cases. “Openvehicles with gateways on board.

source is great because it’s all there, it’s all open. It
makes it much easier to collaborate with vendors
and other organizations. It also ensures we can beinteroperable with other solutions; which is very
important to us,” says Schmitt.

In addition to long distance trains, an increasing
number of modern locomotives for regional and cargotraffic send their location data every 10 seconds. Thisdata is used for various business cases such as delay
prognosis and forecast, predictive maintenance, andpositional data for consumers.

USE CASES
DB has been deploying Eclipse technology on trains
for five years. Eclipse Equinox (an OSGi runtime) andCASE 2 - Dynamic Text Displays

EclipseLink (a Java persistence solution) were alreadyAt stations with low passenger volume, travelpart of the Java stack used in DB trains. Therefore, it

information data is sent to smaller platform displays

was a comfortable decision to add Eclipse Paho tothat show schedule updates like delays, cancellations,this Java stack to provide MQTT client support. On theor platform changes. These smaller LED text displays

back end of the MQTT broker is IBM MessageSight.

are low power devices that run a custom build of Eclipse

Over the last five years, DB Systel has been rollingout new modern IoT applications, using Eclipse
Paho. Here are some examples:

CASE 1 - Long Distance Trains
Today, the long-distance trains use a combinationof Eclipse Paho, MQTT, and a Java Client to send
messages. The trains send real-time information about
their location, delay, and diagnostic checks. Data suchas updated connection information is immediately
pushed from the control center to the train and isdisplayed on the train entertainment system and on
monitors inside the train.

Paho. There are about 6,500 edge devices spread
across Germany, receiving a total of 25 messages persecond.

CASE 3 Escalators & Elevators
Every escalator and elevator at DB train stations havesensors monitoring their operations. An estimated3,000 edge devices send a total of 10 MQTT messages
per second to the central monitoring application. The
transmitted data varies from simple state informationsuch as whether the escalator is running or not, ormore detailed information like power consumption,
door opening/door closing, etc. The calculated state of
the facilities are monitored by an API on an open data

The fleet comprises about 400 long distance trains that

platform, enabling the development of internal andeach send location data every 10 seconds via an Eclipse

third party apps. The GSM terminals used are Gemalto

Paho client. This data is sent to the IBM MessageSight

EHS5/6, running a Java ME runtime. The Midlet used

server running in the DB data center. The passenger

to collect data and communicate with the central

information is transmitted via 3,000 MQTT messages

datacenter uses a custom build of Eclipse Paho.

per day per vehicle, depending on the number ofCASE 4 - Eclipse Mosquitto on DB ICE Trains
In the past, executing software changes and innovation

DB Systel sees three major changes with the Internetof Things in the near future:

on a train was difficult. Software and hardware are

More and more ‘’Things’’ will be deployed andoften bundled and therefore cannot be changed

connected in their system and replacing older

separately. Non-safety systems are often connected toequipment.

safety relevant systems on the train. This meant thatevery change needed public authority approval, which
made the process slow and resource intensive.

Operational technology (OT) is being replaced
by informational technology (IT). This meansthat DB will be better equipped to respond toA new project called “Variable Vehicle IT” wasfaster technology cycles and will have more agile

successfully launched in early 2017. The project aimsand interoperable applications, but maintaining

to create a clear separation between non-safety-

ongoing quality required for a train system will

related systems for customers and operative safetychange significantly.

systems (train control, interlocking, etc.) on German
high-speed trains. This will be achieved by creating acompute infrastructure as a service on the trains toenable digitization. The project uses Eclipse Mosquitto,a lightweight MQTT broker implementation.

Lastly, DB is moving towards more horizontal data
integration instead of the current vertical data
structure. Bringing the passenger, location, andsensor data together, instead of keeping themapart, will allow for much more efficient systems. It

By the end of spring 2017, this solution will bewill not only be beneficial for DB, but also for other

deployed on 256 trains. In this use case, Eclipse

railway systems and customers.

Mosquitto is used for message communication in
the trains as well as message communication to thecontrol center. Eventually the number of messages
served with Mosquitto are expected to surpass thenumber sent using Eclipse Paho on the long-distancevehicles, which is 3,000 messages per day, per vehicle.

FUTURE

Finally, DB foresees more open source integrationsin the future and looks forward to collaborating
within the Eclipse IoT Working Group. Being part ofa collaboration like Eclipse IoT is a good opportunity
to improve DB’s use of open source technology,
and in the long term creates better solutions for DB
passengers.

Deutsche Bahn is always innovating to make their railsystem more efficient and to add business value forpassengers.

Eclipse Paho
https://www.eclipse.org/paho/