RINF 2026: What Railway Infrastructure Managers Need to Know

The Register of Infrastructure (RINF) is the EU's shared database of railway infrastructure parameters. Every Infrastructure Manager submits data about their network—track characteristics, electrification, signalling systems, platforms—so that vehicles can be checked for route compatibility across borders.

That's what RINF was built for. But the scope is expanding.

The March Deadline Approaches

The March 2026 deadline introduces RINF 3.1. The key changes:

• Micro-level topology RINF already modelled which stations connect to which lines. The new requirement: model how tracks connect inside operational points. Switches, crossings, platform connections—the internal structure that determines which paths through a station are actually possible.
• Linked data architecture RINF moves from XML documents to RDF (Resource Description Framework). Infrastructure data becomes a queryable knowledge graph with explicit relationships, validated using SHACL rather than XML Schema.
• Full spatial data GeoSPARQL support for geometry. Track centrelines, operational point boundaries—proper GIS data, not just points with coordinates.
• Persistent URIs Every infrastructure element gets a stable identifier in ERA's namespace. No more locally-scoped IDs that break when data gets combined across borders.

Meeting these requirements once is achievable. The harder question is whether you can keep meeting them as your network evolves.

The Real Challenge: Continuous Delivery

The technical requirements are clear enough. The hard part is building a sustainable delivery system.

RINF compliance isn't a one-time export. Infrastructure changes continuously. New switches get installed. Tracks get realigned. Signalling systems get upgraded. Your data must stay current.

For most Infrastructure Managers, this is the gap. The information RINF requires—track parameters, topology, signalling configuration, electrification—lives in different systems across the organisation. Asset management. Operations. Signalling. GIS. Each holds pieces of the picture.

Bringing this together reliably means:

• Data integration pipelines that pull from multiple sources automatically
• Governance rules that determine which source is authoritative when values conflict
• Ontology mapping between your internal data concepts and ERA's semantic model
• Validation processes that catch errors before submission

Manual processes don't scale. The question isn't "can we produce compliant data once?" It's "can we keep producing it as our network changes?"

The Bottom Line

RINF 3.1 reflects a broader ambition: from a register for route compatibility checks to a knowledge graph supporting telematics, statistics, route books, and applications not yet defined.

The March 2026 deadline is fixed. Organisations that start preparation early have more time to address data gaps, build integration pipelines, and develop the expertise to map their data to ERA's ontology.

---