A pre-InnoTrans 2026 perspective. https://www.innotrans.de
Cisco will be at InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin from 22–25 September, at Messe Berlin — Hall 4.1, Booth 450 — as rail infrastructure managers and operators gather to shape the next generation of rail networks. For over two decades, the Global System for Mobile Communications – Railway (GSM-R) has been the communication backbone of European rail, but the technology is reaching end-of-life. Its successor, the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS), is now the defining programme facing every European infrastructure manager – and the question is no longer whether to modernise, but how fast it can be done safely, and how much control operators retain over the network they end up with.
FRMCS is the mandate, not the option #
FRMCS will replace GSM-R as the global standard under UIC and ETSI frameworks — a regulatory and operational imperative underpinning everything from automatic train protection to real-time telemetry. It is not a radio refresh: it demands a fundamental rethink of the fixed network beneath it — high-availability IP transport, deterministic latency, robust cybersecurity and mass-scale automation.
The new dimension: rail is critical national infrastructure #
Rail is not a commercial network with safety features bolted on — it is critical national infrastructure. Replacing a 20-year-old system with one meant to run the next 20 also means deciding where signalling data resides, whether the network survives geopolitical disruption, and how to meet tightening EU regulation (NIS2, EUCC). As IDC’s Rahiel Nasir notes, resilience is pushing critical-infrastructure organisations toward “the extra controls, protections, and autonomy that genuine digital sovereignty solutions can bring.” For rail, sovereignty isn’t a philosophical preference — it’s an availability requirement.
The Digirail example — ambition meets reality #
Finland’s Digirail programme implements the latest Europe’s Rail System Pillar and EULYNX specifications as a key part of its ERTMS cybersecurity approach. The Digirail programme is an early mover for the FRMCS era, bringing European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) signalling and next-generation communications together and has been candid about the scale of the task — long timelines, major investment, and coordination across vendors, regulators and operators.
“Modernising a national rail network is not a single project — it is a decade-long commitment. The real challenge is not the technology itself but delivering it on a live network without ever compromising safety or service. That is why building a resilient, future-ready fixed network foundation matters as much as the signalling and communications running on top of it.” — Saku Salo, ERTMS Cybersecurity Expert, Digirail
Technical lead for ERTMS cybersecurity and the nationwide railway OT network
Modernising the operating model #
Most FRMCS discussions focus on architecture and equipment. The harder, more underestimated transformation is operational — a network carrying automatic train protection cannot be run the way GSM-R was run. Legacy, minute-scale assurance misses the jitter that matters to ETCS; manual change is the leading cause of self-inflicted outages; and scale outruns headcount across a decade-long rollout. The new model needs microsecond-grade, service-level assurance — not just “is this router up?” — closed-loop automation that remediates before a ticket is opened, and a fully automated, zero-touch lifecycle with reversible change. This is the shift from managing devices to operating services.
The second wave: AI is moving to the trackside, the station and the depot #
AI is shifting workloads out of centralised data centres toward the point where data is created — roughly 75% of processing is projected at the on-premises edge by 2027, near-inverting the 90/10 split of 2021. For a railway, that edge is a station, depot or trackside cabinet, with use cases already operational: predictive maintenance, computer-vision safety at level crossings, passenger-flow monitoring, and automated asset inspection. Because inference must happen locally — latency, bandwidth and data-protection rules rule out backhauling every camera stream to the cloud — the fixed network FRMCS demands must also be a compute and AI platform.
How Cisco is bringing innovation to help rail organisations meet the challenge #
Cisco consolidates signaling, voice, video and telemetry onto a single high-availability fixed IP backbone, using segment routing for programmable, low-latency traffic engineering. Cisco Crosswork Network Automation and Assurance makes the new operating model real: microsecond-level service assurance, closed-loop optimisation that restores service before operations are impacted, an automated lifecycle across thousands of nodes, and a single operational view spanning legacy and FRMCS-era transport. Security is zero-trust and built in, and the architecture supports phased GSM-R/FRMCS coexistence rather than risky “big-bang” cutovers — proven at the scale of the world’s largest service-provider networks.
“Rail is critical national infrastructure, and FRMCS is a once-in-a-generation chance to build it right. Cisco is committed to giving Europe’s infrastructure managers a fixed network foundation they fully control — resilient, secure by design, and sovereign from day one. But new architecture without a new operating model just moves the risk, which is why we’re investing as heavily in automation and service assurance as in the transport layer itself.” — Steve Payne, Cisco EMEA Director for Critical Network Industries
Cisco Unified Edge — one system where the AI edge and the secure network converge #
Today’s rail edge sites are typically a stack of disparate boxes and multiplying that across hundreds of stations makes operational cost the real barrier to AI adoption. Cisco Unified Edge integrates networking, security, compute, storage and software in a single modular chassis: AI-ready compute (Intel Xeon 6 with native CPU inferencing, plus GPU options for heavier vision workloads), post-quantum-ready cryptography, and zero-touch deployment. It’s the practical answer to a hard question: how do you put AI inference at hundreds of unstaffed sites without multiplying risk and headcount?
Sovereign Critical Infrastructure: control, continuity and compliance by design #
Cisco’s Sovereign Critical Infrastructure (SCI) portfolio is our on-premises, air-gapped answer for Europe’s most regulated, mission-critical sectors — transportation among them — spanning routing, optical, industrial IoT, security and compute. Scoping the sovereignty boundary is a design decision, not a procurement afterthought — and FRMCS is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right from day one. Talk to your Cisco account team early about how SCI applies to your programme.
The takeaway for InnoTrans 2026 #
FRMCS transforms rail networks from radio-centric to fully digital, mass-scale infrastructures — making them unambiguously critical national infrastructure — just as AI pushes compute out to the stations and depots that same network serves. New architecture without a new operating model simply moves the risk. The conversation in Berlin should center on four things: modernising the fixed network foundation; modernising the operational model; making that foundation AI-ready at the edge; and retaining sovereign control over data, operations and licensing.
Not if, but how.
Come and see us at InnoTrans — Cisco Booth 450, Hall 4.1.
Want to secure time with our rail and critical infrastructure specialists on-site? Book a meeting through your Cisco account team, or email InnoTrans2026-Cisco@cisco.com to schedule directly.
See you in Berlin.
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