Cisco
How Cisco DNA Is Helping CFL to Build the Future of Public Transport in Luxembourg
- This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine Issue 3 2021.
- Written by Christian Kettmann
Freedom of movement is something we all tend to take for granted. In any large transit station, everyone is rushing to get to their destinations.
All aspects of this system need to run smoothly, which means it relies heavily on coordination and networking. Few of the world’s transit systems can call themselves cutting edge—their clunky legacy systems are difficult and frustrating to manage. These systems are also an impediment to the ultimate goal of public transport: resolving issues immediately and getting passengers to where they need to go quickly and efficiently.
I have spent 25 years of my career working with the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois (CFL), the past several of which in the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO). CFL is the backbone of public transportation in Luxembourg. With a population of almost 625,000, Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe, yet we still experience some of the world’s worst traffic jams due to all the cars on the road. This has led to a steady increase in the use of public transport year over year.
A First-Class Ticket to Innovation: Early Adoption
CFL has been a Cisco customer for many years, but we don’t see Cisco as simply a vendor or a technology supplier. To us, Cisco is a trusted partner that provides solutions to our IT challenges. They provide us with customer care through solutions, configuration, implementation, and ongoing support. And when they introduced us to the Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA), a new solution at the time, it was clear this would be a perfect fit. We were glad that DNA was about as plug-and-play as it gets, and it also allowed us to keep some of our existing Cisco configurations.
