Thanks to Microsoft Azure, Alstom can provide its customers with high-performance, secure and scalable digital services

Going digital enhances differentiation and customer satisfaction

The two major challenges at the heart of Alstom's strategic plan for 2025 are providing a smarter and a more sustainable mobility. And because those challenges are strategic, they bring within management the need to capitalize on the power of the cloud and to accelerate the digitalization of its services.

From high-speed trains to onboard systems, Alstom is present across the entire value chain. Its business is organized around three divisions: rolling stock manufacturing, signaling and maintenance. Although highly complementary, each of these divisions is steering the development of high value-added digital applications that continually enrich the rail service offered by the Group to its customers, whether they are operators, infrastructure managers or transport authorities. The applications are all part of a common approach to meeting the objectives set by the Group.

At the top of that list is the need to guarantee the punctuality of transport services, with reliable and efficient trains, for example via a predictive and remote maintenance process. This also requires digital services that enable better fleet orchestration, a better appreciation of the traffic context, and an immediate view of possible and effective alternatives in the event of incidents. It is also essential to provide users with high-quality information on all aspects of intermodality, to make their journeys along the platforms and in the stations more fluid, and to encourage them to use public transport.

As a logical progression, Alstom intends to place safety at the heart of its digital transformation. The deployment of onboard video systems enables the detection of the number of passengers, of abnormal movements, abandoned luggage and incidents, all of which are inherent to the day-to-day work of a transport operator.

Through its strategic plan, the Group is also stepping up its innovation policy to make trains ever more modern and greener. And here again, digital services play a key role in decarbonizing its activities, as they identify sustainable solutions and further reduce the impact of means of transportation.

Passengers, station staff or train crews, IT support... The use cases that are developed are as numerous as the audience that is targeted by these applications.

Alstom knows it has to rationalize its infrastructure and capitalize on rapid innovation. That is why it has chosen to centralize all its applications on a single Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, based on Microsoft Azure technologies, to make them even more powerful and future-proof.

Modernizing SaaS applications on Azure

The digital services platform operated by Alstom teams connects previously siloed services and facilitates scaling to meet ever-increasing customer expectations in an agile, cross-functional way. As a result, applications are no longer hosted on servers, but directly in the secure Microsoft Azure cloud. "Azure is not only the most comprehensive and reliable cloud on the market, it's also the cloud that enables Alstom to accelerate its digital transformation by leveraging Azure capabilities and continuous innovation," says Guillaume Rabier, Customer IT Solutions VP at Alstom.

The cloud's strength also lies in its ability to facilitate the adoption of a data-centric approach, since data is centralized, accessible and instructive. A new form of shared governance is then put in place to capitalize on this wealth of information. "By hosting applications in the same place, they communicate with each other, exchange information with each other and bring value that benefits both the customer and Alstom. This is the great strength of this platform", explains Vincent Bonnevay, Program Manager at Alstom.

Surprises can indeed spring up in between development and reality. Developing the SaaS platform gave Alstom teams greater visibility on usage and adoption data for the tools they developed. This enabled them to better understand how the tools were actually used, and to iterate and continually optimize their offering to meet user needs as closely as possible.

Let’s look at a concrete example of those benefits with the question of rolling stock energy consumption. This data is measured via a dedicated application and integrated within driving assistance modules. It communicates best practices to drivers in real time, and improves the overall operation of the fleet of customers. This energy measurement is also fed back to Alstom's design teams, who understand how the trains are operated beyond the theoretical calculations they carry out in their design offices, and can thus integrate this field knowledge into their future roadmaps.

Data collected for operational train management also benefits passengers. Applications report train location data, any disruptions and the nature of potential problems. This information is then transmitted via passenger information applications, which provide passengers with useful recommendations, accessible interchanges and places to avoid at a given moment.

The most comprehensive, robust, secure and scalable platform on the market

Whether digital or physical, the services Alstom offers must be perfectly reliable. For the Group, it was therefore essential to opt for a robust and proven platform, which is a key factor in guaranteeing optimum service quality for its customers. API Gateway, Azure API Management, Azure Active Directory, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Sentinel… “All these services rely on the efficient and secure circulation of data, and this data is extremely valuable. We chose Microsoft Azure for its technology building blocks, which enable us to develop this platform quickly and efficiently, but also for the data security it guarantees", explains Guillaume Rabier, Customer IT Solutions VP at Alstom. Vincent Bonnevay adds, "We're reassured by the fact that it's already a certified solution, enabling us to move up the ladder extremely quickly”.

With contract durations extending over several decades, as well as the longevity of rolling stock and associated maintenance, the question of the solution's scalability is also decisive. To ensure that the SaaS platform is future-proof and relevant as technology evolves, it was imperative for the group to move forward with an innovative technology partner and the right computing model. "Over and above the speed with which we were able to develop this platform, the ease of integration of the new applications was particularly appreciated by our teams," reports Vincent Bonnevay. Alstom also called on Capgemini to help them define the Target Operating Model and all the processes required to operate the platform.

Data & Generative Artificial Intelligence: the future of mobility will be disruptive

," enthuses Guillaume Rabier.

"We are going to exploit all the possibilities of digital and data to create added value, be ever more efficient and sustainable, improve user experience, make life easier for operators and all those who operate trains and the entire ecosystem. It's a real source of pride for us to work in a sector that enables millions of passengers to be transported every day in a sustainable way, with a very low carbon footprint", concludes Vincent Bonnevay.