Off the beaten track: new technologies for data capture and analysis provide new opportunities.

Germany's capital Berlin has a unique and well-equipped public transport system. When it comes to rail based transport systems, these are to a large degree relicts from historic developments, particularly since the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Most of these railway connections were cut-off from the rest of the world in formerly Western Berlin during the cold war. Others were neglected due to economic restrictions, mainly--but not exclusively--in the Eastern part of the city and after re-unification, again some of the tracks became superfluous under changed m