On today’s railway, information is as critical as infrastructure. Track, signalling, rolling stock – all are essential, but for passengers, the experience of rail travel is increasingly defined by something less tangible: the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of information.
When things run smoothly, passenger information systems (PIS) can go unnoticed. But during disruption – delays, cancellations, or changing service patterns – they become one of the most important communication points between operator and customer.
In this space, KeTech has been quietly reshaping expectations. Drawing on decades of experience delivering information systems across the UK rail network, the company has developed a PIS offering that is not only real-time and fully dynamic but also designed with sustainability and long-term value at its core.
Sales Director Paul Warren and Technical Consultant Graham Cooke sat down with Rail Engineer to explain further.
Dynamic intelligence
KeTech delivers accurate, real-time journey information to passengers on board trains and on stations across the rail network. The system integrates live data feeds to provide contextual, reliable, information via onboard displays, station screens, and central control interfaces, improving passenger experience while supporting operational efficiency and disruption management.
What sets its offering apart from others is a fundamental shift in how passenger information is delivered. KeTech’s system translates data into intelligence and presents it in a matter of seconds to eliminate the risk of out-of-date information. The PIS displays the live progress of the train, allowing customers to know exactly where they are on their journey and how long it will take to get to their stop.
“There was a real push about a decade ago to be real-time and Darwin-connected,” Paul explained “but the most important thing is being dynamic. It’s great getting a lot of information, but if the system can’t adapt and process that information and provide useful, up-to-date information because something has changed, then it’s not doing its job.”
At its core is a system that continuously interprets live data and adapts its output to ensure relevance.
“Our systems really earn their money when there is disruption,” says Graham. “When everything’s running to timetable, it’s all good. But when things change, that’s when people need the information most. It’s that dynamic behaviour we can offer, on top of all the data feeds, that makes our product stand out.”
Additionally, every customer has different needs, whether that’s a lite touch solution or a fully integrated system, and KeTech has designed its PIS with flexibility, scalability, security, and reliability in mind.
“We tend to ask customers two questions: What are your operational challenges, and what’s your aspiration from a customer experience perspective?”, says Paul. “It’s about tailoring the system to what the customer wants to achieve, and that also obviously includes budget as well.”
British built
KeTech’s PIS is not a standalone product, but part of a wider ecosystem built around its Universal Information System (UIS).
“The system that sits behind this doesn’t just support PIS,” says Graham, “it supports CIS, CDAS, RCM – they all plug into the UIS which sits at the back end.”
The Universal Information System (UIS) serves as the central integration layer, allowing PIS, CIS, and RCM to share a single source of truth and eliminate operational silos. By enabling systems to share data, this architecture reduces duplication, improves efficiency, and supports more coordinated operations.
As Great British Railways moves toward a simpler, more integrated network, KeTech’s Universal Information System (UIS) provides the essential architecture to manage disparate resources more effectively. In an increasingly globalised supply chain, KeTech’s PIS stands out as a leading, UK-developed solution. Purpose-built to navigate the unique challenges of the British rail network, the systems are designed specifically to support the industry’s transition and the evolving needs of network infrastructure. It also aligns with a growing industry focus on supporting UK-based innovation and supply chains, particularly as Great British Railways looks to shape the future of the network.
Smart and sustainable
One of the most compelling aspects of KeTech’s PIS is its contribution to a more sustainable railway. For refurbishment projects, rather than adopting a traditional ‘rip and replace’ approach, the system is designed to reuse, repurpose, and extend the life of existing assets wherever possible.
“If there’s hardware already there and we can use it, we will,” Graham explains. “It’s about asking what we can reuse”
This philosophy directly reduces material waste, avoids unnecessary manufacturing, and minimises the environmental impact associated with new installations.
“We’ll pick up old equipment if it’s perfectly serviceable. Amps are amps, speakers are speakers,” Graham adds.
In an industry increasingly focused on decarbonisation and whole-life carbon, this approach aligns closely with wider sustainability goals. Extending the operational life of onboard systems not only reduces expenditure but also significantly cuts embodied carbon. These sustainability benefits are particularly evident in retrofit projects.
“We have a sliding scale,” Paul explains. “From really light-touch integration through to fully integrated systems. It really depends on the age of the fleet.”
“It can be as easy as a PIS display bolted to the bulkheads… you power it up, give it connectivity, and it will run.”
“We take that all the way through then to a fully integrated system, whether that’s with brand new equipment that we’ve provided or integration with existing equipment. It really depends on how much functionality is required.”
By intelligently re-engineering existing assets rather than retrofitting an entirely new system, KeTech has demonstrated that operators can achieve up to 80% cost savings while significantly lowering embodied carbon.
This approach to asset life extension also applies where the system is provided in a new train build environment, ensuring fewer components are discarded and fewer resources are consumed, making the environmental implications just as significant as the financial ones.
This flexibility also extends to how fleets are deployed operationally. Because the system is configured and managed remotely, onboard equipment does not need depot engineering time when a train is moved between routes or operators.
This allows trains to be redeployed where capacity is needed, with passenger information, branding, and service data updated centrally to reflect the new route(s). The result is a consistent, real-time passenger experience, regardless of where the train is operating.
However, KeTech’s sustainability mission extends far beyond the initial installation. KeTech’s system is designed to reduce environmental impact throughout its entire digital lifecycle by utilising remote updates and simulation tools.
As Graham explains, older systems often required technicians to physically visit a train with a USB stick – a process that is both costly and time-consuming. By enabling remote deployments from an office environment, we cut the carbon footprint and high operational costs associated with traditional site visits.
Simulation tools further reduce inefficiencies, Graham continues. “We provide a simulation tool so operators can see exactly what will happen before committing it to the train.”
Taken together, these features support a more efficient, lower-impact maintenance model – one that aligns with the rail industry’s broader environmental ambitions.
Future ready
Looking ahead, KeTech emphasises the importance of being “future-ready” rather than “future-proof”.
“You can’t really guess where technology is going to go,” says Paul, “so we design systems to be modular.”
KeTech believe a modular approach is not just a ‘nice to have’, its strategic defence against one of the industry’s biggest headaches – technical obsolescence. By designing their products with a modular architecture, they ensure that components can be upgraded individually, avoiding the need for wholesale replacement and further supporting sustainability goals.
This strategy aligns with broader industry insights from the RSSB, which highlights that modularity in digital systems can reduce long-term integration complexities and associated costs by up to 20%. This ensures that as the Great British Railways infrastructure evolves, KeTech systems can adapt seamlessly without the excessive expense or waste of a total system replacement.
“It’s about not being caught in a corner,” Paul adds.
Ultimately, the value of any passenger information system lies in its ability to improve customer journeys but, increasingly, it must also contribute to a more sustainable railway. KeTech’s PIS achieves both.
By delivering accurate, real-time information, it enhances the passenger experience. By reusing existing assets, reducing maintenance interventions, and enabling smarter operations, it supports a lower-cost, lower-carbon, and more resource-efficient network.
As the railway evolves, systems like this will play a central role – not just in informing passengers, but in shaping a greener and more resilient future for rail.