The implementation phase (roll-out), the largest entity of the Digirail project, is now under way, as the project has started the production of an implementation phase plan (roll-out plan). The plan for the implementation phase is intended to cover all activities of the Digirail project outside the EKA sub-area from 2025 to 2040.
The Digirail project has been roughly divided into two major areas: EKA and ROSU. EKA is the first commercial track section to be built between Lielahti-Pori/Rauma. ROSU, the roll-out plan phase, includes many projects, one of which is writing a roll-out plan. ROSU is, in short, everything else that happens after the EKA phase. The roll-out plan must describe what will happen during the Digirail implementation phase, as well as how and when. The roll-out plan is intended to provide information to a wide range of stakeholders, from the strategic level to those interested in technical details.
“The roll-out plan affects everyone at Digirail. All the know-how and expertise built around Digirail should be connected to a roll-out plan so that a description can be made on how the implementation phase should be carried out,” says Ellinoora Korpela, ROSU’s Project Manager.
First major release will be published in January 2025
Writing out the roll-out plan began at the end of last year. At that time, a table of contents for the roll-out plan was being outlined, i.e. to decide on the entities that the plan should contain. In addition, a project model was outlined for starting the drawing up of the plan.
“The most important goal is to ensure that the project model functions well. It will be slightly different from what we are used to. The goal is to make the teams and the concept of ‘release thinking’ functional, and to get the first release completed. From the point of view of the content of the roll-out plan, it is of primary importance to have a preliminary procurement strategy drawn up by the summer. In addition, the phasing and scheduling of the roll-out plan will be reviewed and confirmed.”
The intention is to release an interim version of the roll-out plan three times a year to see where the writing of the plan is going and what the implementation phase plan looks like. At the same time, it is also possible to obtain development proposals from outside the project team, so that they can be taken flexibly into consideration in the ongoing work. The first interim version is expected to be ready in May, which means that some releasable content should already be available by then.
The first major release 1.0, which meets the minimum requirements for launching the roll-out, will be released in January 2025 and the second major release 2.0 is expected in December 2026.
“That will signify the end of the roll-out plan writing project. The plan will then be updated along with changes in the operating environment in accordance with a separately agreed update process. After all, the implementation phase itself will begin already in 2025, which means that the roll-out and roll-out plan will overlap for a while. For this reason, there will be two major releases.”