InnoTrans 2026 - Designing the next generation of rail solutions
What we saw at InnoTrans 2026 - and what it means for the future of rail
The mood at this year’s show was unmistakably optimistic. With more than 3,190 exhibitors from 59 countries and around 175,000 trade visitors, there was plenty for our team to explore, from new rolling stock and interiors to automation, alternative propulsion and emerging digital technologies.
Across the whole show, there were some obvious overarching themes: technology is becoming more integrated; passenger expectations are rising; and the boundaries between design, engineering and operations are becoming increasingly blurred.
But for us, the most interesting developments were where the new technologies on show intersected with passenger experience. Because the future of rail isn’t just about how trains move, operate or maintain themselves. It’s about how they make people feel, how they cater for every passenger’s individual needs, what they enable people to do, and how well they fit into an increasingly connected transport ecosystem.
Trains, not planes and automobiles
There were plenty of exhibits exploring how trains could become a more credible alternative to short-haul air travel. These ranged from early concepts to fully resolved designs.
Much of the focus was on re-imagining on-board facilities for overnight travel, but the opportunity extends well beyond sleeper trains. If rail can offer more adaptable, comfortable and engaging experiences, could the interior itself become a reason to choose the train? Flexible interiors, private spaces and transformable seating are prompting teams to rethink the traditional relationship between passenger, seat and journey. Designing for different ways to travel could help rail attract passengers who might not otherwise consider it and give people more reasons to choose rail over other modes.
We found examples of a lot of airline business-class seat style concepts throughout the show. From a human factors and design perspective, the practical challenges can be solved – though there is a clear opportunity to look beyond existing airline solutions and develop something uniquely suited the train travel.
However, the more difficult challenge, from our conversations with the teams developing these seat concepts, was the business case. How much space should a premium passenger get? How much are they prepared to pay for it? And how do you make the economics work when every centimetre of occupied space will mean fewer passengers overall?And what about the additional weight that such complex seating structures represent? A reduced carbon footprint is one of the great positives for rail travel, so anything that increases vehicle mass and thereby reduces operating efficiency will be hard to justify.
The challenge isn’t only designing a better seat. It’s designing one that makes commercial and environment sense. Some of the more extreme examples we saw would struggle to tick these two boxes.
How do you make the economics work when every centimetre of occupied space will mean fewer passengers overall?
Self-service onboard catering
Many operators and manufacturers are now integrating self-service onboard catering into production trains, moving away from traditional staffed catering models.
As these solutions become more widely adopted, they are likely to quickly shift from being a novelty to a baseline expectation, giving passengers greater choice and convenience while offering operators a potentially more flexible approach to onboard service.
Self-service is becoming less of an innovation and more of the new normal.
Signage has matured
Where once there seemed to be a scattergun approach to signage in trains, with the results varying considerably between locations, operators and manufacturers, it was encouraging to see a much more considered approach across the trains on display. Good way-finding should feel like an integral part of the interior design.
Clearer hierarchies, more consistent information and better integration with the wider interior design are helping signage become part of the passenger experience, rather than something added as an afterthought.
Real-time displays
There are clear advantages to simplifying route maps and reducing information to emphasise the essentials. But there is also value in seeing your journey represented at a realistic scale, understanding where you are, where you’ve come from and how far you have to go.
The challenge is finding the right balance between simplicity and giving a journey context. A good journey map shouldn’t just tell passengers where to get off. It should help them understand the journey they’re on.
There is value in seeing your journey represented at a realistic scale
Real-time voice translation
What was particularly striking was how unremarkable the experience felt. No obvious friction, no sense of interacting with a complex technology. It simply worked. As language barriers become easier to overcome through technology, there are interesting implications for the passenger experience: more accessible information, more informed and confident international travellers, and fewer moments where language becomes a barrier to navigating the railway system.
Pushing light weight appropriate materials
Although the conversation around sustainability is certainly not new, it was interesting to hear vendors talking less about sustainability as a stand-alone ambition and more about how materials can work harder to deliver performance and weight reduction that can benefit the operators. Weight and cost are directly linked: lighter trains mean less energy, which in turn means less fuel/electricity. Lighter vehicles do less damage to tracks and reduce infrastructure maintenance costs. With the proliferation of battery trains, weight is arguably more important than ever before.
Using high-performance materials to reduce weight while improving strength, durability and functionality has obvious benefits for rail, from energy consumption and vehicle efficiency to long-term maintenance savings. There is a lot of exciting development happening in this area, with new materials and manufacturing processes creating opportunities to do more with less.
Exciting times lie ahead for materials science if light weighting continues to be a driving force in the next generation of trains. As manufacturers look to improve efficiency without compromising strength, durability or passenger experience, the opportunity for new materials and manufacturing techniques is significant.
VR exhibits weren’t pulling the crowds; physical models were
Purely out of curiosity, our team tested several VR experiences across a range of manufacturers. The technology was impressive, but they are something that the user experiences in isolation.
By contrast, full-scale and scaled physical mock-ups remain remarkably effective at communicating a concept to a larger audience. They give people something tangible to explore, discuss and react to, often making the idea easier to understand collectively.
What was particularly interesting this year was seeing more teams using unfinished 3D-printed parts and prototypes to demonstrate their innovations. Rather than waiting for a polished final product, these rough physical models provided an immediate way to communicate form, scale and function. Sometimes, you don’t need a finished item to make an idea feel real.
When we spoke to the teams involved, they explained that keeping the 3D-printed models unfinished was a deliberate strategy. Rather than committing to a polished prototype weeks or months ahead of the show, they could continue developing the design right up to the show date, making late changes and reflecting their latest thinking.
AI / Machine learning
AI interpretation of the feeds from camera systems offers the potential to understand what is happening on the track ahead, or what people are doing on the platform as the train arrives. The real-time demonstrations were particularly compelling, showing how these technologies could give operators and drivers a much richer understanding of what is happening in the environment around the train.
As systems become better at interpreting the world around them, the way people interact with, understand and respond to the information these systems provide becomes increasingly important. Human Factors will play an important role as automation grows, making sure the right information reaches the right person, at the right time, in a way they can quickly understand and act on.
Mixed use spaces
We’ve seen mixed-use spaces showcased many times over the years, but particularly on the UK network, they can be difficult for operators to implement when faced with the commercial pressure of maximising seat numbers.
This year, however, we saw some much more subtle and effective solutions that integrated naturally into the fabric of the train, making it feel like a natural part of the journey rather than creating spaces that feel like a compromise. The challenge is not simply creating a mixed-use space, but providing greater flexibility without making the loss of seats feel so obvious.
Feeling is believing
We weren’t the only ones making a point of sitting on almost every seat available. InnoTrans is a show built around the ability to touch, try and experience products first-hand.
Exhibitors with “Do not touch” signs seemed to be missing a trick - their products were noticeably easier to walk past than those inviting people to sit down, interact and explore.
Allowing people to experience a product first-hand demonstrates confidence in the design. It also creates a much more engaging conversation: instead of simply looking at a product, people can immediately form an opinion about how it feels, works and performs. If you want people to believe in your product, let them experience it.
Folding tables
Folding tables certainly aren’t new to rail, but what felt different this year was how quickly they are becoming a go-to solution onboard, particularly as operators look for ways to provide usable task surfaces without compromising passenger movement, egress and access.
The tables on show were impressively quick to deploy and offered a practical solution within a constrained space. However, the speed of deployment didn’t always translate into a premium user experience. In some cases, the hinges and lack of damping made the mechanism feel less refined than the rest of the train. The challenge is to raise the quality of the fittings, materials and mechanisms so that the resulting table feels as good as the train around it, whether deployed or folded away.
Unique rail vehicle solutions for existing infrastructure
It’s 163 years since work began on the London Underground’s deep-level tunnels. In that time the tunnel diameters haven’t really changed, while our expectations of the trains running through them certainly have.
That creates a fascinating design challenge. For any new trains coming into service, designers and engineers have to find new ways of delivering against our modern expectations within infrastructure that was never designed for them.
The Piccadilly Line upgrade is a great example. The new Siemens Inspiro 2024 Tube Stock introduces deep-level tube air conditioning for the first time, despite the severe space constraints of the existing tunnel dynamic envelopes. Their solution required cooling equipment to be packaged beneath the train floor, alongside innovative bogie arrangements that help maximise the available space within the narrow loading gauge. Sometimes the biggest constraints can drive the most inventive solutions and this is certainly a case in point.
Homely creature comforts
It was heartening to see such thoughtful lighting strategies being deployed across new trains, making the saloons feel noticeably more pleasant and considered.
Rather than simply providing functional illumination, lighting is being used to help shape the atmosphere of the interior, defining spaces, creating a sense of comfort and making the journey feel more welcoming.
Bringing it all together
Digital technology is influencing physical vehicle design. Alternative propulsion is changing vehicle architecture. AI is transforming maintenance and passenger information. Sustainability is influencing material and component choices. And changing passenger expectations are pushing the industry towards more flexible, intuitive and engaging journey experiences.
Increasingly, none of these challenges can be solved in isolation. This is where multidisciplinary thinking becomes critical. At DCA, we bring together strategy, research, human factors, industrial design, engineering, electronics and software, materials, prototyping and regulatory expertise, connecting creative thinking with technical and commercial realities throughout the development process.
Because the most successful rail innovations aren’t simply new technologies. They are solutions that work for passengers, operators and manufacturers. The future of rail won’t be defined by technology alone. It will be defined by how effectively technology, design and engineering come together around the people who use, operate and maintain the railway.
