Train Dispatching Market Size, Share & Analysis

The global train dispatching market in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth $942 million in 2022 and is poised to reach $1,391 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 8.1% from 2022 to 2027. The dedicated freight railroads, dedicated passenger railroads, mixed railroads, regional railroads, and shortlines were all plotted in this study. train dispatching systems give dispatchers access to real-time data on the position, motion, and status of trains as well as the capability to remotely monitor and manage train movements. This enables dispatchers to better coordinate with other dispatchers and railway operators, optimise train timetables, and react swiftly to unforeseen occurrences like delays or accidents. Additionally, train dispatching systems can be utilised for a variety of applications, such as train dispatch, train timetables, railway tracks, train monitoring, and train control, which aid dispatchers in the effective and secure management of the rail network. These platforms give businesses a single point of access to all integrated capabilities, including phone handling and dispatching, field communications, third-party application integration, and data reporting and analysis.

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Market Dynamics:

Driver: Increased investments for public safety in smart city projects

Smart technologies are revolutionizing the structure of cities. Smart energy meters, security devices, smart appliances, and smart transportation are among the technologies used to develop smart cities. Ensuring public safety and security is a key factor in gaining the trust of citizens while evolving into a smart environment. Hence, integrating public safety solutions into the smart city process is important. Governments are rapidly investing in various sectors, such as smart homes and buildings, smart communication, smart transportation, smart utilities, public safety, and connected cars. For instance, the Government of India declared a budget of USD 1.2 billion for smart cities for 2020 to 2021, a 57% increase from 2019.

Similarly, in 2016, the US Department of Transportation (US DOT) spent approximately USD 550 billion on infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and mass transportation for smart cities and advanced transportation technologies. A survey in Asia Pacific by Hitachi Data Systems in 2015 revealed that 69% of the respondents were planning to invest in public safety projects. The report also stated that approximately 56% of respondents expected their countries to invest more than USD 100 million in public safety initiatives in the next two years. This highlights the importance of public safety in developing smart cities and the significant investments made in this direction by regional and national governments, especially for ITS systems for roadways and railways, including train dispatching systems.

Restraint: Lack of infrastructure for train dispatching systems in railways

The poorly developed telecommunication infrastructure and limited availability of access to smart devices in emerging countries create barriers in the train dispatching market. High internet access cost also acts as a barrier to smart railway concepts such as train dispatching. As organizations increasingly adopt IoT technologies, pursue ambient computing technology, and offer various IoT solutions, standardization across data standards, wireless protocols, and technologies have become more divergent to reduce complexities and costs. This is also happening due to the increasing number of newly developed connected devices that run on various platforms and technologies.

Connected railway train dispatching systems are complex to operate together, which is expected to cause difficulties in interoperability. Different systems and solutions, such as operations management systems, traffic management systems, control systems, and asset management systems, are connected through established networks. These solutions work on the same standards as well as defined protocols. Therefore, the lack of standards and protocol is projected as a key restraint in the train dispatching market.

The increasing demand for rail services is straining the existing systems. It requires optimization of the existing passenger and freight schedules to achieve increased throughput on the existing rail infrastructure. The operation of networks in the transportation industry has gradually transformed over the years. These changes require costly equipment to maintain and manage multiple aging proprietary networks, each supporting a specialized application with unique telecom requirements. The system includes various networks that have their upgrade, maintenance, and operational processes. The solution choices are limited and rigid without open standards across the infrastructure. Network rigidity also prevents new technologies from being added and new services from being delivered. Current IT systems are old and complex, making data sharing difficult. They can also not cope with the scale of growth predicted over the next few years. Frequent network failures and system outages can have a domino effect, negatively impacting customer satisfaction.

Opportunity: Globalization and need for advanced transportation infrastructure

Globalization directly affects the traffic of all types of railway transportation. There is a demand for increased speed, security, and reliability. Hence, the future railway transportation ecosystem must deliver solutions to satisfy the demand with a high level of service, regardless of the distance traveled or the number of steps required to reach the destination. The demand from people is changing daily, and therefore, there is a need for more convenient travel solutions.

Intelligent solutions such as advanced train dispatching, positive train control (PTC), centralized train control (CTC), advanced vehicle control systems, and other systems provide information on the real-time position of vehicles, which may be used to monitor schedule adherence and provide passengers information about the location of vehicles in transit. Providing accurate real-time information about the status and location of in-transit vehicles to passengers is expected to improve satisfaction.

All public and private sector participants have recognized the need for better transportation infrastructure. Organizations see the potential of smarter railway transportation to address this need. Regions such as Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific are increasing their focus on building smarter rail infrastructure. In the next five years, from 2021, approximately USD 310 billion will be used to improve and replace rail infrastructure facilities and services across the globe. These factors are expected to boost the demand for train dispatching in the near future eventually.

Challenge: Integration complexities with legacy infrastructure

Train dispatching systems are integrated through different technology elements, such as hardware, software, and network, which can be complex to configure. Without strong pre-existing IT and skilled personnel, the implementation of train dispatching infrastructure is difficult. Railway operators can overhaul the IT system; however, costs incurred in such an overhaul would take significant time to realize. Current IT systems are old and complex, making data sharing difficult. They can also not cope with the scale of growth predicted over the next few years. Frequent network failures and system outages can have a domino effect, negatively impacting customer satisfaction.

Due to protocol issues, legacy systems cannot integrate with new-generation smart devices. These systems are not capable enough to communicate efficiently with technologically advanced systems. As most developing countries still rely on their legacy infrastructure, these integration complexities will hinder market growth in developing regions in the coming years. IT and network security restrictions to reduce privacy intrusion and data breaches are projected to be major challenges to the growth of the train dispatching market.

Increased mining activities drive the dedicated freight railroads segment

The US, Russia, and China are major markets for freight transport. In 2019, the freight transported by rail between the US, Canada, and Mexico accounted for USD 179 billion. In Europe, rail freight transport declined from 398.16 billion ton-kilometers in 2018 to 389.34 billion ton-kilometers in 2019 and further plummeted to 366.54 billion ton-kilometers in 2020. However, in 2021, the Port of Gothenburg experienced remarkable growth of 9% compared to 2020 from rail freight. Dedicated freight railroads integrate minimal advanced train dispatching systems. Therefore, due to the low integration of train dispatching systems, dedicated freight railroads will have a medium impact on the train dispatching market during the forecast period

The US is expected to acquire the largest market share by 2027 as several rail operators in the country use software to automate and speed up the dispatch management process. In 2021, the Indian Railways earned USD 1.5 billion from freight transport, which is 26% higher than the previous year’s earnings, and also witnessed a rise in freight loading by 11.19%. Governments are focusing on freight transportation by rail by increasing budget allocations for freight corridors and rail networks. Freight transports have low integration of railway systems currently. Future demand for high-tech systems may lead to the integration of advanced train dispatching systems in freight transportation, impacting the computer-aided dispatch market.

Services segment to grow at higher cagr during forecast period

Train dispatching refers to dispatching/managing rail vehicles and emergency services assisted by computers. In this chapter, the train dispatching market is classified into solutions and services based on offering. Solutions include a primary interface with real-time status information and visual modeling tools, mobile data terminal and mapping, automatic vehicle location and GIS interface, and public awareness messages. Services considered in the study include implementation, support & maintenance, and training & education.

Train dispatching solutions can cater to single or multiple agency dispatching and provide an overall view of the incident, location information, and other related details for command and control centers. The integrated capabilities of dispatching, mapping, field communications, reporting, and analysis are available in the train dispatching solutions. These solutions help in real-time visual alerts and automatic logging.

Train dispatching solutions provide automatic rail vehicle location, GIS, mobile mapping, and real-time mapping. Real-time mapping of rail vehicles and dispatch units provides a clear picture for the dispatcher to have overall information on vehicles in the field or operation. The exact location of the vehicles is tracked, and their statuses are monitored for dispatch purposes. Tracsis plc (UK) and Wabtec Corporation (US), among others., are prominent solution providers.

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Key Market Players

The train dispatching market is primarily dominated by players Hitachi Rail Ltd. (Italy), Siemens AG (Germany), Motorola Solutions Inc. (US), Alstom SA (France), and Wabtec Corporation (US). These players have worked on providing offerings for the train dispatching ecosystem. They have initiated partnerships to develop their train dispatching technology and offer best-in-class products to their customers.

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Scope of the Report

This research report categorizes the train dispatching market based on offering, deployment model, railroad type, application, and region

By Offering

• Solutions
• Services

By Application

• Dispatch Unit Management
• Reporting & Analysis
• Call Management
• Others

By Deployment Model

• Cloud-based
• On-premise

By Railroad type

• Dedicated Freight Railroads
• Dedicated Passenger Railroads
• Mixed Railroads
• Regional & Shortlines

By Region

• Asia Pacific
  • China
  • Japan
  • India
  • Australia
  • Rest of Asia Pacific
• Europe
  • France
  • Germany
  • Spain
  • Italy
  • UK
  • Rest of Europe
• North America
  • US
  • Canada
• Latin America
  • Brazil
  • Argentina
  • Rest of Latin America
• Middle East & Africa
  • Saudi Arabia
  • South Africa
  • Rest of MEA

Recent Developments

• In January 2022, Motorola Solutions Inc. has launched the MOTOTRBO R7, a digital two-way radio designed to connect teams in loud and harsh environments. The device has advanced audio features and a slim, rugged design and is programmed and updated over the air via Wi-Fi. It can also connect to various sensors over DMR and Bluetooth and can be integrated with video security and access control systems. The MOTOTRBO R7 is designed to support communication and collaboration in various work environments, and its integration with other safety systems and technologies allows teams to detect and respond more quickly to events and emergencies
• In December 2021, Siemens AG developed Digital Train Control System in collaboration with VGF (Germany). This system is expected to replace the conventional train control system used in metro and tram networks. This system is developed to increase the capacity and efficiency of train routes, especially in the underground sections.
• In September 2021, Hitachi Rail Ltd. launched PTC to automate product development, enhance product innovation, and reduce delivery time for rail applications. This launch will also improve the company’s manufacturing process and cost management.
• In September 2021, Hexagon AB has introduced a portfolio of integrated security & surveillance solutions for the rail industry. The portfolio combines 3D surveillance systems with software to enhance security, dispatching, and collaboration. It includes Leica BLK247 and accur8vision 3D security and surveillance systems, which use LiDAR, thermal sensors, video and 3D planning and tracking software, and HxGN OnCall Security | Guardian, a system that provides a common operational picture for alarms, sensors, IoT devices, and video data.
• In April 2021, Motorola Solutions Inc. has launched WAVE PTX in Singapore and Malaysia, a communication service designed to enable commercial and government organizations to increase safety and productivity. WAVE PTX allows organizations to expand the coverage and functionality of their business communications by connecting land mobile radio networks with broadband networks. It is available both as a cloud-based and on-premises service and supports Android, iOS, and web applications for PCs. The solution also includes advanced dispatch software, which allows the organization and coordination of team communications and includes mapping tools to track the location of people and resources. Motorola Solutions Inc. has also released two purpose-built communication devices, TLK 100 and TLK150 two-way radios, and the MOTOTRBO Ion smart radio to access the WAVE PTX service.

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