FOSDEM is Europe’s largest gathering of Free and Open Source Software developers and enthusiasts, with thousands of people attending and hundreds of talks taking place each year. For the third time in a row, there will be a Railways and Open Transport devroom. Proposals for presentations are possible until 1 December 2024.

FOSDEM 2025 will take place on the weekend of 1 and 2 February 2025 in Brussels (Belgium) at the ULB university. The devroom covers the whole Sunday afternoon. It is a perfect opportunity for the wider community to get to know each other, learn and connect as the audience is developers and enthusiasts of Open Source. This includes a good number of railway fans and people active in related communities.

Several people involved in the OpenRail Association are coordinators of the devroom. We look forward to many interesting proposals from the OpenRail community.

Possible topics include:

• Dealing with schedules, time tables, live information about trains and public transport
• Simulation of network behavior, traffic, dispatching, schedules
• Open approaches to transport interoperability and standards
• Operation of infrastructure and vehicles, Open Source in a safety-critical environment
• Information systems for trains, stations, infrastructure, …
• Geo software, mapping, navigation tools
• Accessibility assistants for travelers
• Railway games
• Research topics, AI applications, AR, conversational UI
• Booking, tickets, travel planning
• …or your inspiring topic that we didn’t have on our radar!

All information on how to submit talks can be found on the landing page of the devroom.

For an impression of the last edition, please feel free to have a look at the talks and recordings of 2024.