The 7th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Railways (AI4RAILS 2026) will take place on 7-8 September 2026 (provisional) in Galzignano Terme and Venice, Italy. The workshop is co-located with the International Conference on Optimization and Decision Science (ODS 2026). The venue is Galzignano Resort Terme & Golf.
AI4RAILS is an established annual forum bringing together researchers, practitioners and industry to discuss the dependable application of artificial intelligence in railway systems. The programme includes a keynote talk and technical presentation sessions, and welcomes contributions covering AI, optimisation and hybrid approaches for both passenger and freight rail.
The keynote speaker is Prof Kevin Tierney (University of Vienna).
Key topics include AI for rail operations, planning and control, predictive maintenance, demand forecasting, real-time traffic and disruption management, large language model applications, digital twins, explainable and trustworthy AI, and real-world case studies.
Key dates, aligned with the ODS 2026 schedule, are as follows:
- 15 January 2026: opening of submissions
- 15 April 2026: deadline for abstracts and short papers
- 30 April 2026: acceptance notification
- 15 May 2026: camera-ready papers and early registration deadline
- 31 July 2026: registration deadline for inclusion in the final programme
Researchers and practitioners are warmly invited to submit short papers (8-10 pages) or abstracts (up to 2000 characters) via the ODS submission system, selecting the AI4RAILS track.
Please refer to https://rails-project.eu/ai4rails2026/ for full details, submission instructions and updates.
Best regards,
Paola Pellegrini, Gustav Eiffel University, France,
Nikola Bešinović, Technical University of Dresden, Germany,
Zhiyuan Lin, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.