Systra: Redefining Urban & Intercity Travel through Smart, Sustainable Infrastructure

Across the globe, transportation is evolving into a more digital, climate-resilient, and human-centric experience. Commuters are demanding seamless journeys defined by convenience, comfort, and sustainability, not just speed and cost. Governments and private stakeholders alike are racing to adapt, investing in smart mobility ecosystems powered by IoT, AI, and data analytics. Yet beneath this wave of innovation lie persistent fault lines, including capacity constraints, cost escalations, implementation delays, and an acute shortage of skilled manpower. The reality of underutilized infrastructure budgets and safety lapses adds urgency to the transformation. Navigating this complex landscape with an eye on digital transformation, lifecycle efficiency, and scalable, future-ready solutions is SYSTRA.

SYSTRA is a global transportation engineering consulting firm specializing in MRT. Present in more than 80 countries, the company brings a rare blend of global expertise and local understanding, positioning itself as a trusted advisor to government authorities, multilateral institutions, and urban development agencies worldwide. It is a one-stop partner for complex mobility projects with comprehensive capabilities that span the entire project lifecycle. India, “In india, we are involved in more than 80 percent of metros either as a designer or the project management consultancy”, says Hari Kumar Somalraju, Managing Director, SYSTRA India.

Three Foundational Pillars

Safety, optimization, and sustainability guide every stage of infrastructure development. A non-negotiable standard is technical safety, embedded in the company’s engineering solutions. Every system it designs is built to meet the highest global safety benchmarks, ensuring that urban mobility networks function efficiently and protect human life and infrastructure integrity across diverse operating environments.

Equally critical is the focus on optimization. SYSTRA is internationally recognized for its ability to engineer smarter, faster, and more cost-effective solutions. A prime example of this is the company’s patented U-shaped girder, first introduced on the Dubai Metro and now widely adopted across Indian metro projects. This innovation delivers approximately 20 percent in overall project savings through accelerated construction timelines, reduced material consumption, and aesthetically superior design, making it ideally suited for elevated metro corridors in dense urban settings.

The third pillar, sustainability, is increasingly central to the company’s strategic outlook. As countries commit to net-zero targets, it has proactively developed a comprehensive sustainability framework that spans every phase of the infrastructure lifecycle, from feasibility and design to construction, and ultimately, operation and maintenance. The company leverages advanced digital tools to establish carbon baselines at the outset of a project and to continuously monitor emissions across each stage.

Data-driven Urban Mobility

SYSTRA emphasises on the early stages of project planning, specifically feasibility studies and strategic planning. The company focuses on comprehensive data collection, rigorous analysis, and advanced modeling. Its priority is the acquisition of high-quality, actionable data that underpins every decision made during the feasibility phase. Supported by a team of domain experts and data scientists, the company employs sophisticated modeling tools to assess, predict, and recommend the most appropriate mobility systems for each unique urban context.

Through its planning and feasibility advisory services, it promotes a holistic view of urban mobility. Rather than proposing standalone transport systems, the company develops integrated, multi-modal frameworks that encompass buses, private vehicles, shared mobility, non-motorized transport, and mass transit. This philosophy of smart mobility enables the company to build inclusive, scalable, and sustainable transport ecosystems, grounded in evidence, responsive to real-world challenges, and optimized for the cities of tomorrow.

Driving Meaningful Progress

To integrate technology at every phase of a project, the company has established a comprehensive digital roadmap spanning design, construction, and operations and maintenance. In the design phase, SYSTRA leverages leading digital tools, including Building Information Modeling (BIM), to streamline processes and improve accuracy. Going beyond conventional adoption, it has initiated the development of a proprietary generative design framework, supported by an AI model tailored exclusively to its delivery ecosystem.

In the construction phase, SYSTRA has introduced a dedicated digital platform called e-PMC (Electronic Project Management Consultancy), designed to offer end-to-end visibility and collaboration for all project stakeholders including clients, contractors, and consultants. By digitalizing core construction activities and real-time site data, e-PMC enables seamless monitoring, faster information flow, and data-driven decision-making. “Since most of the information is digitalized, we are expecting the efficiency to increase by 10-20 percent”, says Hari.

Blueprint for Next-Gen Transport

SYSTRA is currently authoring a white paper on the future of smart mobility, redefining it as a seamless, end-to-end travel experience grounded in reliability, safety, comfort, and environmental sustainability. The company envisions mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), where infrastructure is user-centric and aligned with global goals of energy efficiency and net-zero emissions. This vision includes designing and delivering integrated systems that reduce the carbon footprint while ensuring convenience and connectivity across transport modes. A core area of focus within this vision is energy transition, particularly in optimizing power consumption for systems like train operations. The company is leveraging its global expertise to adopt advanced technologies and modern operations and maintenance practices that minimize energy usage without compromising on service delivery.

Furthering its leadership in high-speed transportation, it brings a formidable legacy, having contributed to the design and implementation of over 50 percent of the world’s high-speed rail networks. In India, the company is actively investing in future-ready mobility solutions, including the development of indigenous Hyperloop technology. In collaboration with TuTr Hyperloop (incubating startup from IIT Chennai), it is working to bring this cutting-edge system closer to reality, while simultaneously advancing conventional and semi-high-speed rail corridors. Whether in the urban mobility landscape through smart, multimodal solutions or across intercity networks via high-speed innovations, SYSTRA is well-poised to deliver scalable, efficient, and sustainable transport systems tailored to tomorrow’s needs.