4 days of discussions on the future of public transportation
Four days, hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of visitors, and virtually the entire world of public transportation in one place. This year’s InnoTrans in Berlin celebrated its 30th anniversary, and for us, it was an excellent opportunity to showcase INNOKREA as a technology partner for the mobility industry. It was precisely the conversations with companies that develop ticketing systems, passenger solutions, rail infrastructure, and technologies supporting public transit operators on a daily basis that proved to be the most interesting.
After a few intense days, we’re returning with new contacts, specific topics for further discussion, and an even clearer picture of the direction in which the digitization of public transportation is heading. We also know exactly what role we want to play in this ecosystem.
Software that connects public transportation
InnoTrans is still primarily associated with vehicles, infrastructure, and hardware solutions. At the same time, IT systems, mobile apps, backends, data, and integrations now account for an increasingly large share of these interconnections.
Modern public transportation relies on an ever-increasing number of interconnected components. The ticketing system, passenger app, onboard devices, passenger information system, and backend infrastructure must increasingly function as a single, cohesive unit. And this is precisely where software becomes the layer that ties all these individual elements together into a whole.
Multi-vendor integration
A similar topic has come up in many of our conversations: how to effectively integrate solutions from different manufacturers and suppliers. This applies to ticketing systems, mobile apps, onboard devices, as well as backends and complex legacy environments.
The larger and more complex a system is, the more important it is to have good architecture, a well-thought-out integration strategy, and the ability to develop new functionalities without disrupting the existing infrastructure. It is precisely at the intersection of various technologies that many of today’s most demanding projects in the public transportation sector arise.
Stability Above All Else
New features and technologies attract attention, but during our discussions in Berlin, we also frequently returned to the topic of stability. In public transportation, problems with the app, the ticketing system, or passenger information can immediately affect thousands of users.
Therefore, system development must go hand in hand with reliability, predictability, and the ability to safely implement changes in a live environment. In practice, this often means not building everything from scratch, but rather modernizing, integrating, and gradually developing existing solutions.
Four days of talks
As always, the most important part of InnoTrans for us was the meetings. Over the course of four days, we tirelessly engaged in discussions with technology suppliers, system integrators, and companies operating in the public transportation sector from many European countries.
We discussed the development of ticketing systems, the integration of external platforms, mobile apps, passenger information systems, legacy IT, and the challenges associated with implementing new solutions in an existing environment. These conversations are particularly valuable to us because they help us better understand not only the direction in which technology is heading, but also the real-world problems that teams face on a daily basis.
Thank you to everyone who visited our booth 7.1c / 315, took the time to meet with us, or stopped by even just for a brief conversation. InnoTrans 2026 is now behind us. Many of the conversations that began in Berlin are now moving into the next phase.
