How a Portuguese AI-pioneering software company capitalises on increasingly complex railways

Founded by two Portuguese engineers, the Lisbon-based SISCOG is considered a pioneer in the adoption of artificial intelligence for transport optimisation, dispatching trains across Europe for 40 years. In an interview with RailTech, CEO Miguel Velosa Rodrigues talks about the journey of changing ownership last year to a Canadian conglomerate and an increasingly complex railway system. 

The Portuguese software company helps train operators dispatching trains, managing human resources, and planning rolling stock circulation and management. “What we implement has a lot of impact on our customers”, says Miguel Velosa Rodrigues to RailTech. He joined the Portuguese company last October as CEO, after more than 20 years of experience in the mobility and transportation tech industry. “Our software saves up to 10% of operational costs,” he highlights, saying the project “pays for itself”.

In the passenger segment, the software is used by the national passenger operators of the Netherlands (NS), Northern Ireland (Translink), Norway (VY), Finland (VR) and Canada (VIA Rail), together with local operators in Spain (FGC – in the Catalonia region) and in Sweden (Arlanda Express – linking Stockholm’s central station to the airport). Within urban transport, the London Underground and Metro de Lisboa are also customers, as well as Medway and CargoNet in the freight industry.

Product evolution

SISCOG was founded in 1986 by two Portuguese engineers, Ernesto Morgado and João Pavão Martins, with whom Miguel Velosa Rodrigues had classes on the artificial intelligence course during the Informatics Engineering bachelor’s degree in Portugal. The company is considered a pioneer in the adoption of artificial intelligence for transport optimisation.

Personnel planning was the first tool developed, facilitating the shift distribution and adapting it to local legislation and company agreements concerning holidays, days off, and leaves. This solution saves up to 57% in the time necessary for planning and avoids empty desks or cabins in the daily operations, according to the company. “Every customer has a different operational context, even if they come from the same country. That is why our solution is so necessary,” says Velosa Rodrigues.

Then, the Portuguese company started to develop its software for train scheduling and fleet management, including shunting yards. “We simplify the planning issues by saying that each network node is just a node. This is something so easy to understand that we have extremely positive feedback,” he adds. At the end of 2025, there were 100 people working for SISCOG, most of them remotely.

Complexity generates opportunities

The railway ecosystem keeps evolving and is also becoming more complex due to the implementation of the EU legislative packages, reinforcing interoperability. The labour legislation is an example: “For a customer, it can become so difficult to comply with the regulation that it is impossible to plan with a paper and a pen. That is the tipping point for a company, and it is an opportunity for us”, signals Velosa Rodrigues.

Market liberalisation is also an opportunity to conquer new customers. SISCOG is betting on the Scandinavian markets. “These regions are very dynamic in the railways”, says the executive, who was leading Yunex Traffic’s Intelligent Traffic Systems unit before returning to Portugal.

‘Independent’ from the new owner

In July 2025, SISCOG’s ownership moved from its two founders to the Canadian mobility conglomerate Modaxo. This group is involved in areas such as ticketing, payment, urban mobility technology, traffic enforcement, dynamic pricing and intelligent transportation systems.

Despite being in the same group, “once there is an opportunity, we will become competitors,” says Velosa Rodrigues. “That does not mean, however, that if a customer wants an integrated solution and a single point of contact, we can find a partner to complement us”, he adds.

After 39 years, this was an impactful transformation in the software company. Despite that, the Portuguese company has not lost its independence: “Our owner is not strictly financial, with economic-based steering and no strategic perspective,” guarantees Velosa Rodrigues.

Owning more than 20 transportation companies, the Canadian group “gives us total freedom to reach the operational goals”, says software company CEO. “That is the beauty of the balance between an independent company, with its own teams, products and customers, and the necessity of adapting some of its workflows to a business and management proposed by them.” The decision process becomes “more solid” because it “requires more debate”, he highlights.

No autonomous plans

With countries like Czechia and the Netherlands testing self-driving trains, SISCOG does not involve itself in this area. “If there are fewer drivers, there will be fewer people to manage. Eventually, rolling stock management would become more complex because if some of the human nuances, such as parking the train in the depot after a shift, are not mirrored in an automatic system,” explains Velosa Rodrigues.

Despite the “unknowing” context of the autonomous train driving, SISCOG is investing in research and development, always concerned about cybersecurity. “Our product incorporates AI, and we are expanding our capacities of interacting with a database and supporting the decision-making.”

AI would also support the business procedures: “For example, a tender in Belgium with documents in Flemish, something that is very distant from the Portuguese or English language, can be assessed very quickly.” To conclude, Miguel Velosa Rodrigues quotes the former chess champion Gary Kasparov: “AI is not artificial intelligence; it stands as augmented intelligence.”

Let’s see how SISCOG will evolve in a railway environment that is becoming more complex, less human-driven and part of a Canadian conglomerate.

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