Dr. Andreas Schlapbach
PhDAI/ML Initiative Lead & Enterprise Architect · SBB
25+ years building large-scale distributed systems for Swiss public transportation. Currently leading AI/ML initiatives at SBB's Passenger Division — designing agentic ecosystems with MCP, operationalizing LLMs at scale, and defining international open standards for rail distribution. PhD in Computer Science, University of Bern.
Experience
AI/ML Initiative Lead, Passenger Division
SBB · Bern, Switzerland
› Conceived, designed and implemented an ecosystem of 10+ domain-expert AI agents (trip planning, booking, weather, events, hotels) using MCP protocols and intelligent federation over dynamically discovered schema relationships.
› Operating agent ecosystem at scale: 1,000+ tool-to-tool dependencies managed deterministically, failure modes recoverable without human intervention.
› Rolled out Spec-Driven Development (SDD) to 25+ teams across Java/Spring, Next.js/Angular, iOS/Android, SAP, Snowflake and ServiceNow stacks.
› Operationalizing AWS Bedrock for mission-critical use; member of SBB's AI/ML Centre of Competence.
Lead System Architect for SBB.ch
SBB · Bern, Switzerland
› Designed and built the next generation of SBB's web presence, one of the three most visited sites in Switzerland.
› Staffed and led three feature teams, one platform team and one design system team.
› Established a headless frontend stack (React/Next.js, Web Components) with cloud-edge infrastructure (AWS CloudFront, Lambda, WAF, Shield).
› Consolidated frontend APIs from Adobe AEM, Adobe Commerce, SAP Sales Cloud, and ServiceNow into an enterprise GraphQL graph.
OSDM API — Tech Lead & Product Owner
SBB / International · Switzerland
› Technical lead and Product Owner of the Open Sales and Distribution Model (OSDM), an international API standard for rail ticket distribution.
› Standard adopted by all major European railways (DB, SNCF, Trenitalia, ÖBB) and leading global distribution systems (Amadeus, Sqills, Trainline, Sabre).
› Built and grew an open-source community of technical experts across Europe.
Senior Enterprise Architect, Passenger Division
SBB · Bern, Switzerland
› Drove high-level architecture for myRIDE and the next-generation reservation system for Swiss public transportation.
› Initiated and conceptualised SBB's Swiss Mobility APIs and a SAP Hybris Billing back-office covering accounting, billing, invoicing, and payment reconciliation.
› Initiated and designed SBB's voice bot using Google Dialogflow and WeChat/AliPay apps for the Asian market.
Senior Software Architect & Deputy Chief Architect
SBB · Bern, Switzerland
› Led architecture for SBB's omni-channel distribution renewal — 110+ FTEs across 12 distributed teams using a microservice approach on OpenShift.
› Mapped business capabilities to application, data, and infrastructure architecture using a TOGAF-driven approach.
› Organisational lead of 4 software architects and 5 developers; successful delivery.
Skills
Languages
Architecture
Frontend
Infrastructure
AI / ML
Process
Projects
OSDM — Open Rail API Standard
International open-source API standard for rail ticket distribution, now adopted by all major European railways and global distribution systems.
SBB MCP Agent Ecosystem
Ecosystem of 10+ domain-expert AI agents (trip planning, booking, weather, events) coordinated via MCP protocols with 1,000+ tool dependencies.
khtml / WebKit Contributions
Open-source contributions to the KDE HTML rendering engine (khtml), including substantial work on the CSS parser — now the foundation of WebKit used by Google Chrome and Safari.
SBB.ch Headless Rebuild
Next-generation headless web presence for one of Switzerland's three most visited sites, with cloud-edge infrastructure and an enterprise GraphQL layer.
Publications
In Review
Under Review› A. Schlapbach: The Convergence of Schema-Guided Dialogue Systems and the Model Context Protocol.
› A. Schlapbach: Formal Semantics for Agentic Tool Protocols: A Process Calculus Approach.
› A. Schlapbach: Collinearity and Cluster Stability in Transport Economics, Evidence from Aviation and Rail.
Books, Chapters & Journals
4 publications› A. Schlapbach: Writer Identification and Writer Verification. Dissertationen zur Künstlichen Intelligenz, Aka, Berlin. ISBN: 0817646701.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: A Writer Identification System for On-line Whiteboard Data. Journal of Pattern Recognition, vol. 41(7), pp. 2381–2397, Elsevier, 2008.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Off-line Writer Identification and Verification Using Gaussian Mixture Models. In Machine Learning in Document Analysis and Recognition, vol. 11, pp. 409–428, Springer, 2008.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: A Writer Identification and Verification System Using HMM Based Recognizers. Pattern Analysis & Applications, vol. 10(1), pp. 33–43, Springer, 2007.
Conference Papers
13 papers› M. Liwicki, A. Schlapbach, and H. Bunke: Using On-line and Off-line Data to Detect Gender and Handedness from Handwriting. Pattern Analysis and Applications, 14(1), pp. 87–92, 2011.
› M. Liwicki, A. Schlapbach, and H. Bunke: Writer-Dependent Recognition of Handwritten Whiteboard Notes in Smart Meeting Room Environments. Proc. 8th IAPR Workshop on Document Analysis Systems, pp. 151–157, 2008.
› A. Schlapbach, F. Wettstein, and H. Bunke: Automatic Estimation of the Readability of Handwritten Text. Proc. 16th European Signal Processing Conference, pp. 1–5, 2008.
› A. Schlapbach, F. Wettstein, and H. Bunke: Estimating the Readability of Handwritten Text — A Support Vector Regression Based Approach. Nominated for best paper award. Proc. 19th Int. Conf. on Pattern Recognition, pp. 1–4, 2008.
› M. Liwicki, A. Schlapbach, P. Loretan, and H. Bunke: Automatic Detection of Gender and Handedness from On-Line Handwriting. Proc. 13th Conf. Int. Graphonomics Society, pp. 179–183, 2007.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Fusing Asynchronous Feature Streams for On-line Writer Identification. Proc. 9th Int. Conf. on Document Analysis and Recognition, pp. 103–107, 2007.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Off-line Writer Verification: A Comparison of an HMM and a GMM Based System. Proc. 10th Int. Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, pp. 275–280, 2006.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Off-line Writer Identification Using Gaussian Mixture Models. Proc. 18th Int. Conf. on Pattern Recognition, pp. 992–995, 2006.
› M. Liwicki, A. Schlapbach, H. Bunke, et al.: Writer Identification for Smart Meeting Room Systems. Proc. 7th IAPR Workshop on Document Analysis Systems, pp. 186–195, 2006.
› A. Schlapbach, V. Kilchherr, and H. Bunke: Improving Writer Identification by Means of Feature Selection and Extraction. Proc. 8th Int. Conf. on Document Analysis and Recognition, pp. 131–135, 2005.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Writer Identification Using an HMM-Based Handwriting Recognition System. Proc. 12th Conf. Int. Graphonomics Society, pp. 138–142, 2005.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Off-line Handwriting Identification Using HMM Based Recognizers. Proc. 17th Int. Conf. on Pattern Recognition, pp. 654–658, 2004.
› A. Schlapbach and H. Bunke: Using HMM Based Recognizers for Writer Identification and Verification. Proc. 9th Int. Workshop on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition, pp. 167–172, 2004.