Awesome Semantics on Rails

A curated list of Knowledge graphs, projects, resources and initiatives related to applying semantic web technology in the railways domain.

Contents

• Awesome Semantics on Rails
  • Contents
  • Ontologies
    • Ontology Implementations
    • Academic Papers
  • Knowledge Graphs
    • Sparql Endpoints
    • SHACL Rules
    • SKOS Concepts
  • Applications
    • Generic Applications
    • Community Effort
  • Conferences
    • Railways conferences
    • Master Classes - Workshops
  • Interfacing Data Models
    • UIC
  • Other Awesome
  • Contribute
  • License

Ontologies

Ontology Implementations

• ERA Ontology - ERA ontology covering topology, railway infrastructure and vehicle types. The namespace URI for the ontology is http://data.europa.eu/949/

• Verified Permission Ontology - ERA Verified Permissions ontology (with use cases vehicle (type) authorisations & vehicle registrations)

• Semantic RSM - RSM refoundation, based on direct RDF/OWL modelling

Academic Papers

• Rail Topology Ontology - Rail Topology Ontology: A Rail Infrastructure Base Ontology.

Knowledge Graphs

SPARQL Endpoints

• ERA Endpoint - Sparql Endpoint of the European Union Agency for Railways containing more than 50 million triples of railway infrastructure and vehicle types.
• Ontorail Endpoint - Ontorail project Endpoint
• Catalogue of SPARQL queries - List of useful SPARQL queries

SHACL Rules

• ERA SHACL Rules - ERA SHACL rules used for the ERA KG.

SKOS Concepts

• ERA SKOS concepts - ERA SKOS concepts used for the ERA KG.

Applications

Generic Applications

• Infrastructure Search - Searching form of resources in the ERA endpoint.
• Map Explorer - Visualizing EU railway infrastructure.
• Route Compatibility Check - Route compatibility check of vehicle types against railway infrastructure.

Community Effort

• Ontorail project - UIC project with a web application listing some conversions to semantics and glossaries.

Conferences

Railways conferences

• [Rail Data Forum] - powered by European Union Agency for Railways

  • 2024: https://www.era.europa.eu/content/rail-data-forum-2024
  • 2025: https://www.era.europa.eu/content/rail-data-forum-2025

• RailML Conference - RailML conference

• SEMIC - EU SEMIC conference

• Sem4Tra - Semantic Data Space for Transport colocated with Semantics Conference

Master Classes - Workshops

• SHACL validation - Master class for SHACL at RDF 2025, Cuj, Romania.

• Railway Data Modelling - Workshop on railway modelling at RDF 2025, Cuj, Romania.

• [SPARQL for beginners(https://gitlab.com/era-europa-eu/public/interoperable-data-programme/era-ontology/rail-data-forum-2025/sparql-for-beginners-masterclass) -Master class on SPARQL for beginners at RDF 2025, Cuj, Romania.

• [RDFisation(https://gitlab.com/era-europa-eu/public/interoperable-data-programme/era-ontology/rail-data-forum-2025/rdfisation-masterclass) - Master class on RDF conversion using YARRRML/RML at RDF 2025, Cuj, Romania.

Interfacing Data Models

UIC

• OSDM
• SFERA

Other Awesome

• Awesome Semantic Web
• Awesome Knowledge Graph Construction Tools
• awesome-knowledge-graph

Contribute

Contributions welcome! Read the contribution guidelines first.
Some of the content were copied from other awesome lists

License

To the extent possible under law, Ghislain A. has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.