A UIC workshop dedicated to Driving Advisory Systems (DAS) and Automatic Train Operation (ATO) and their advantages in terms of energy savings was organised on 10 February by UIC at its headquarters in Paris.
The workshop, opened by Jerzy Wisniewski, Director of the UIC Fundamental Values Department, was moderated and supported by Roland Nolte, Managing Director of the Institute for Future Studies and Technology Assessment (IZT) based in Berlin.
The workshop was an excellent opportunity for managers, advisors and professional specialists to exchange experiences on the best practice of eco-driving in the railways and the most innovative technologies and experiences on the topic.
More than 45 participants took part in the workshop. A first discussion panel included presentations in commercial DAS products and ATO systems. Experts from the main companies related to the topic such as Cubris, Transrail, Knorr-Bremse, Alstom and AVP-RZD presented the main advantages of these technologies.
A second block included the experiences of B-Logistics and SJ drivers involved in eco-driving programmes and DAS software developments, presenting the procedures and the main results achieved to improve energy efficiency.
Furthermore, railway undertakings and infrastructure managers presented the main programmes developed and the interactions between the traffic management centres and train operations using eco-driving programmes, DAS developments and the requirements for connected DAS. Experiences from Infrabel, RZD, JR, DB, SBB, SNCF and OBB were presented at this panel.
A final part included a fruitful discussion between the participants on the performance and management of eco-driving, including DAS and ATO, addressing the main advantages, barriers and challenges for the development and improvement of these technologies, standards requirements over the next 10 years.
The workshop provided the participants with a special opportunity to network and to meet the main actors involved in the sector.
All the workshop presentations are available at the following link:
http://www.uic.org/forms/spip.php?article1483&var_mode=calcul
