TRIGOS Carinthia goes to Anexia – for future-proof business
Anexia Rail cuts CO2 emissions in rail transport, developed with Austria's national railway and University of Klagenfurt.
Anexia wins the TRIGOS Carinthia 2026 in the Climate Protection category. The award goes to Anexia Rail, a planning system for rail transport that integrates artificial intelligence and mathematical optimization into railway logistics and staff planning for the first time. It was developed by Anexia Digital, the digital engineering company within the Anexia Group, together with the Austria’s national railway (ÖBB) and the University of Klagenfurt.
The TRIGOS Carinthia has been awarded since 2008 to companies that put responsible business practices into demonstrable action. It is supported by BKS Bank, the Carinthian Chamber of Commerce, the Carinthian Federation of Industry, Caritas Carinthia, the Austrian Federation of Environmental Organizations (Umweltdachverband), the Austrian Red Cross Carinthia, and respACT (Austrian Business Council for Sustainable Development).
Preserving knowledge, Cutting emissions
The complexity of the railway system has grown over decades and is now beyond the full grasp of even experienced planners. Good decisions have long relied on the knowledge of individual dispatchers. With an approaching generational shift, that knowledge was at risk of being lost.
This is exactly where Anexia Rail comes in. The system takes over locomotive rotation planning, a task that used to take several days. Today, the algorithm completes it in a matter of seconds. Specifically, it addresses which locomotive pulls which train at what time, when it needs maintenance, and where it is needed next. With thousands of trains and locomotives, there are countless possible combinations, only a few of which are truly efficient. The algorithm automatically identifies those efficient combinations. The result: fewer locomotives in use, fewer empty runs, and a reduction in CO₂ emissions of 15 to 20 percent.
“Anexia Rail shows what we stand for as a company: a strong commitment to open standards that build a solid foundation for digital progress and strategic independence. For us, that’s digital sovereignty in practice, and responsible business in a highly connected world,” says Alexander Windbichler, founder and CEO of Anexia Group.
A team that brings know-how together
Behind Anexia Rail is an interdisciplinary team of mathematicians, software architects, and project managers at Anexia Digital. They continuously oversee further development, implementation, and partner management.
“For an optimization problem of this scale, known in academic literature as the dynamic Rolling Stock Rotation Problem, there was previously no practical solution,” says Philipp Hungerländer, Professor at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Klagenfurt. “With Anexia Rail, we’ve achieved a genuine technological breakthrough.”
“Anexia Rail is what we mean by responsible technology development: a project that has grown over years, together with public partners like ÖBB and the University of Klagenfurt, and one that makes a measurable difference in the end,” says Patrick Kulterer, CEO of Anexia Digital.
The jury particularly recognized how Anexia Rail addresses key challenges facing the rail sector, including rising transport volumes, workforce shortages, and growing system complexity. The underlying optimization logic isn’t limited to rail. It can be applied to other areas with comparable complexity, such as healthcare and logistics.
