As part of the dissemination activities led by UIC within the EU FP7 co-funded collaborative R&D CleanER-D project, the Sustainability and Innovation Workshop was held on 5 June 2013 in the city of Turin on the premises of the former FIAT Lingotto factory, an extraordinary 1920s industrial heritage building. The largest car factory of its time, with its rooftop test track, hosted the CleanER-D workshop remarkably well, acknowledging the importance of engines throughout the history of transport.
And indeed, this thought-stimulating venue gave rise to very fruitful presentations and discussions during the day.
Opened by Judit Sandor (UNIFE), Technical Coordinator of the project, and moderated by Isabelle De Keyzer (UIC), the workshop started with a comprehensive presentation of how in practice it is possible to provide Stage IIIB compliant rail diesel vehicles. This first panel session explained the results of the demonstration subprojects, i.e. Heavy Haul and Light Weight, and LCC models used in the project. Their purpose was to bring CO2, NOx and PM emissions below the limits established by the Non Road Mobile Machinery Directive (2004/26/ EC), by refurbishing an existing locomotive and integrating a stage IIIB compliant engine into a new locomotive.
After this introduction, the next panel sessions presented in a clear and very interactive way the findings derived from the work of the three scientific Sub-projects, namely: Emerging Technologies, Hybrid Solutions and Sustainability and Integration. The preliminary results demonstrate that substantial reductions of NOx and PM emissions for the European Diesel fleet from 2008 – 2020 have been achieved already and further significant reductions are expected until 2020 (minus 30 % NOx and minus 40% PM).
Beyond this reduction a further emissions reduction of rail diesel vehicles is possible with existing technologies as well as hybrid solutions, but the main factor for a further emissions reduction is to accelerate the market uptake of IIIA and IIIB compliant rail diesel vehicles into the fleet, as all scenarios still suggest a high percentage of UIC II and older engines in 2020.
CleanER-D has thus proven that diesel propulsion will fulfil stage IIIB exhaust gas limits and that freight and passenger services hauled by diesel propulsion can be very efficient as well as innovative.
Given the intense exchange and interest expressed by participants, the consortium considers this workshop as a perfect introduction to the final conference of the CleanER-D project on 20 November in Brussels where the final results and recommendations derived from the work achieved will be presented.
We are therefore inviting you to save the date of 20 November 2013 for the CleanER-D final conference in Brussels and to follow us on our website: http://www.cleaner-d.eu
