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 fifth time in a row, there will be a Railways and Open Transport devroom. Proposals for presentations are possible until November 27, 2026.

FOSDEM 2027 will take place on the weekend of 30 and 31 January 2027 in Brussels (Belgium) at the ULB university. The devroom covers the whole Saturday morning. 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:

• Railway infrastructure and operation: timetabling, signalling, operation, simulation, dispatching, infrastructure planning, network management
• Traveller information and accessibility: multimodal trip planning (train, bus, metro, ferry, air…), inclusion, open source ticketing, mobility as a service
• Analytics of railway and transport data: working with historical data, forecasts, machine learning, AI/AR
• Tools to produce, validate, quality measure, operation, deviation and lacks to use open data
• Cross-cutting themes: international collaborations and open standards (e.g. NeTEx, SIRI, GTFS), climate and sustainability impact, gamification and education, policy

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 2026.