ADIF’s Railway Smart Grid project has been deployed by amplia))) in collaboration with NTT Data and CAFTE. OpenGate is the cornerstone of the project and plays a key role as the reference IoT platform for the digitalization and intelligent management of railway energy infrastructure. Not in vain, ADIF has selected OpenGate as its IoT platform for all its future IoT projects.

The project aims to evolve towards a smart railway electricity grid, optimizing electricity consumption and improving monitoring, energy efficiency, and reliability of supply at stations, electrical substations, and other assets distributed throughout the railway network.

OpenGate’s role in the solution

OpenGate acts as a central platform for:

  • Acquiring energy data from smart meters, sensors, and distributed systems.
  • Managing IoT devices at scale, including remote provisioning, configuration, and monitoring.
  • Standardizing and processing data from multiple manufacturers, protocols, and technologies.
  • Integrating with ADIF’s corporate systems for analysis, reporting, and operational support.
  • Managing events and alarms for early detection of electrical incidents.
  • Optimizing operations through process automation and remote monitoring.

Future evolution

In parallel, new projects are emerging at ADIF that rely on OpenGate as an enabling platform. Some examples include:

  • The Smart Stations initiative, where OpenGate is beginning to centralize and leverage valuable information for both station managers and passengers, improving operations, user experience, and data-driven decision-making.
  • The centralization of infrastructure maintenance operations, such as bridge monitoring or monitoring of water control and extraction systems in tunnels, providing intelligent detection of potential incidents that could impact rail traffic.
  • A unified management system for monitoring and controlling the fiber optic network and energy management systems.

Furthermore, as a critical infrastructure management platform, OpenGate provides advanced cybersecurity capabilities that enable ADIF to protect its assets as they evolve towards IoT environments. This is key to reducing the attack surface, ensuring data integrity, and guaranteeing system availability in an increasingly connected and security-demanding world.

Conclusion

The use of OpenGate in the Railway Smart Grid project allows ADIF to transform its railway electricity network into a digital, intelligent, and data-driven infrastructure, laying the foundation for more efficient, sustainable, and resilient operations.

At the same time, this project enables ADIF to fully leverage the potential of IoT applications, with the advantage of having a platform capable of supporting countless use cases that harness the value of information from multiple, currently fragmented, sources.