The Capacity4Rail Project, co-funded by the European Commission and addressing the issue of railway capacity, has reached the one year mark and held its 2nd General Assembly today in Paris, in the presence of some 60 participants representing 46 European partners from 13 countries in Europe and Turkey.
Following the White Paper on European Transport published in 2011, Capacity4Rail proposes to bring a system vision of the railways looking towards 2030/2050, by proposing guidelines for future deployments in the mid-term, recommendations for technologies to be developed and deployed in the long-term to obtain an affordable, adaptable, automated, resilient and high-capacity railway.
Featuring a good balance between sector activities, the project is actually composed of four distinct technical Sub-Projects: SP1 – Infrastructure, SP2 – New concepts for efficient freight systems, SP3 – Operation and Capacity, SP4 – Advanced monitoring, and one transverse Sub-Project namely SP5 – System assessment and migration to 2030/2050.
Entering its second year, this four-year project (from October 2013 to 30 September 2017) has already produced significant achievements and, through a roadmap and a vision, set up a firm basis for future developments towards the railway of 2050.
Submitted deliverables approved by the EU Commission will be available online on the project’s dedicated website http://www.capacity4rail.eu.
Chaired by its Coordinator Laurent Schmitt (UIC), the meeting was therefore shared between a General Assembly and a plenary session addressing the latest developments and achievements of technical subprojects.
Taking stock of the work done, the meeting also listed the forthcoming tasks, and highlighted those that need to be finalised soon to meet the European Commission’s requirements.
Concluding a very positive meeting, the Coordinator stated that the project is now entering a period where interaction and communication between the partners will be crucial to progress towards the common 2050 vision in a complex system approach.
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