(All images courtesy Rail Baltica)
by Ron Bernthal
Rail Baltica is a rail transport infrastructure project with the goal of integrating the Baltic States into the European rail network. The project includes five European Union countries – Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and indirectly also Finland. It will connect Helsinki, Tallinn, Pärnu, Riga, Panevežys, Kaunas, Vilnius, and Warsaw. The Baltic part of the Rail Baltica project is referred to as the Rail Baltica Global Project.
The 540 miles of Rail Baltica are divided into several sections, across each of the three Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. An ongoing electric rail infrastructure project in the region, Rail Baltica’s purpose is to provide sustainable passenger and freight service between participating countries and improve rail connections between central and northern Europe. To help engineers plan, construct, and manage maintenance tasks to make improvements, RB Rail AS and Esri Technology, the global leader in location intelligence, have signed an enterprise agreement to integrate geographic information system (GIS) software across all project units.
Rail Baltica is the largest railway infrastructure project in the history of the Baltic States, offering unique opportunities by linking Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with a standard gauge railway and connecting to Poland and beyond. The new mixed-use line, bridging the missing link of the North Sea–Baltic core network corridor, will support a range of passenger and freight services—connecting cities, towns, ports, and airports and serving both people and businesses.
The Baltic countries joined NATO in March 2004, and accession to the EU quickly followed in May; both moves infuriated Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In the face of growing Russian aggression, all three countries were already looking to increase interoperability with the rest of the EU, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has added urgency to that.
In August, the project attracted military mobility funding from Latvia’s funds, demonstrating the civil and military characteristics of the scheme.
“In the current geopolitical conditions, the strategic significance of the Rail Baltica project is increasing,” said Latvia’s Transport Minister at the time. “It is particularly important to ensure reliable connectivity with Western Europe and to fully use the new rail transport connection with Europe to increase our country’s defense capabilities”.
The decoupling of the Baltic state’s rail network from Russia is not the only area where the countries are trying to reduce their reliance on Russia.
“As the Rail Baltica project progresses, the amount of data that needs to be managed grows significantly, as do the needs of its GIS users, so the Esri Enterprise Agreement was a natural choice to ensure strengthening the capabilities of GIS in the Rail Baltica project,” said Raitis Bušmanis, head of the Virtual Design and Construction department at RB Rail AS, the Rail Baltica joint venture.
“GIS technology is universal and allows integration of various data formats and easy sharing of information with project partners—for example, to review design data, monitor construction progress, track deadlines, and manage and maintain asset registers,” said Bušmanis. “We believe that collecting the design and construction data during those stages will have a huge benefit during the operations and maintenance phases, making them more efficient and cost-effective. Good quality and structured data are key components for assuring sustainable operations of the Rail Baltica digital infrastructure, and Esri’s ArcGIS solutions can help us get there.”
The holistic geographic approach that the new GIS system will bring also allows railway personnel to make necessary adjustments in near real time and plan routes to be less environmentally impactful.
“We are proud to sign this agreement with RB Rail AS, representing the application of GIS across its enterprise as the foundation of a system of systems,” said Ian Koeppel, Esri’s international business development lead for transportation markets in Europe. “Enabling these large international projects to create location-intelligent digital twins is a big step toward building a sustainable European infrastructure network.”
