The Capacity4Rail project, co-funded by the European Commission, and addressing the issue of railway capacity, held its first dissemination workshop from 10 – 11 June in Paris.

This four-year project (1 October 2013 to 30 September 2017) aims to bring today’s railway system to a future vision for 2030/2050 where enhanced capacity and performances will enable it to successfully face the challenge of the growing demand for goods and passenger transportation. In particular, it will define a comprehensive roadmap to describe the necessary steps to develop and implement innovation and to progress from the current state-of-the-art to a shared global vision of the 2050 railway along realistic scenarios.

Attended by around 40 representatives from the railway sector, European bodies and academic institutions, the workshop served as an opportunity to promote the project’s objectives, take stock of the achievements to date and look towards future activities, as well as discuss the expected potential improvements from the project’s results.

The workshop was opened by Isabelle De Keyzer, followed by a general presentation by Laurent Schmitt, Project Coordinator at UIC. The presentations given by the researchers covered the various ways in which the project is addressing the capacity issue through its various sub-projects (infrastructure, freight, operations, advanced monitoring), giving an overview of the latest progress and developments within each area, and explained the objectives and strategy towards achieving a common vision for a more efficient future rail system.

Highlights of the workshop included:

Upgrading infrastructure
New concepts for freight systems
Operation for enhanced capacity
Developing advanced monitoring technology
Vision, roadmap and assessment framework

The presentations from the workshop will be available soon on the project’s website: www.capacity4rail.eu