The diagram in the figure below shows the architecture used for this pilot. The main efforts during the pilot development were focused on the creation of a RINF-based LDES, which leverages directly the data updates coming from every infrastructure manager, and an initial demo application of the infrastructure Alert service (blue background). Subsequent iterations focused on the integration of the LDES data stream into the existing ERA Knowledge Graph publishing pipeline. 

Objective achieved

The objective of this pilot was to show how LDES can be useful for ERA. Thanks to the LDES, railway undertakings can be alerted if changes in the physical properties of the infrastructure happen in regions of interest. 

In addition, the implementation of Linked data principles and Linked Data Event Streams flow can: 

• Reduce the data ingestion time for ERA in RINF by focusing solely on the new changes, as opposed to the current way of ingesting the data in which the entire XML files are uploaded with each new version. 
• Help to detect data quality issues in later updates of the data (coming from the XML files). 

Next steps

Thanks to its successful pilot phase, ERA decided to roll out the LDES pipeline in the production environment, making LDES a crucial component in the data provision pipeline within the agency and giving all the Member States the opportunity to benefit from its added-value without considerable decentralised investments (e.g., allowing infrastructure managers to use the LDES as a historic record of their own infrastructure assets). 

If you have questions about LDES or would like to take a similar journey, please contact us.