In the last years, many countries have tried to better the structure of their national railways: improving services and performance, cutting operating costs and separating the ownership of the various activity areas. One way to improve the service quality is to develop new automatic tools for planning and designing railway infrastructures and for controlling traffic operation. Many companies are developing new software tools for differet computer architectures, which have to take into account different tasks such as simulating or controlling traffic on tracks or in stations, recognising and solving abnormal operating conditions, supporting the control staff in their decisions, planning the timetable, designing and improving the network layout, managing rolling stock and personnel and managing corrective and preventive maintenance, etc. These tools are based on different modules: the data management, the data elaboration and the data representation (Man Machine Interface). The interactions between these modules are important and will be detailed in the paper. Further the problems related to the development of the tools and the establishment of guidelines for the use of the tools to manage and represent the train routing will be described.
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