Boris Lapidus, Chairman of the International Railway Research Board (IRRB)
The world is actively creating new forms of transport, and it is quite correct to speak about the prospects of intermodal convergence. In order not to lose the market niche it is necessary to deploy the development of innovative forms of transport. The strategy of innovative development of railway transport must be targeted at ensuring that innovative transport projects enhance the capabilities of railways, serve as their continuation in the new transport segments, integrate with the conventional railway transport and complement it in the framework of an integrated transport system. Using the traditional advantages and opportunities of multimodal integration and technological convergence, it is necessary, therefore, to expand the operational scope of railways to make them the basis of emerging global and regional logistic systems.
In order to promptly respond to the global challenges it is necessary to carefully study and monitor not only those innovative development tendencies in the world transport system which are already developing, but also those innovative trends that are only beginning to take shape in the 2050 perspective.
The International Railway Research Board (IRRB) has defined the paradigm of “seamless” and “forever open” transport as a strategic development direction for 2050, the key features of which are:
- dynamic (or adaptable) client orientation,
- high stability, and focus on creating added value for the economy and society,
- high availability and competitiveness,
- fault tolerance and interoperable traffic management in real time,
- global development of railway corridors, also based on the principle of interoperability,
- energy-efficient rolling stock with low-cost life cycles, focused on the needs of future customers,
- high technical safety and personal security of passengers,
- effective use of information technology both for client convenience and to reduce costs,
- and, finally, organised, reliable, and qualified staff, able to provide efficient operation of the railway system.
Based on those characteristics it is necessary:
- first, to develop innovations already created or being created that are aiming for the future of the sector;
- second, to make special emphasis on all new developments and transport projects for their compliance with the principles of interoperability and multimodality;
- and, third, to make the staff of railway transport key subject of research. It has to be of interest for our science not only as the most important resource, the human resource, which needs rational cost engineering, and its productivity needing cardinal increase. We have to consider the staff-related problems in a consistent manner, that is in all their variety: taking into account the economic, psychological, ergonomic, and other aspects.
The competitiveness of railway transport significantly depends on the ability to reduce the total cost of life cycle operation for all railway subsystems, minimising the results of aging, effective migration of new technological innovations. Innovation should provide a high degree of railways automation, both technically and operationally, as well as monitoring of vehicles and state of infrastructure. These should become the base of increasing system stability, reliability, economic efficiency and improved customer service.
The successful future railway system will be provided by assets adaptable to the ever-increasing consumer expectations of quality. Strengthening of inter-industry competition in the transport market amid the increasing consumer requirements for volumes, correspondences and the number of railway transports is a powerful drive for innovative reforms based on advanced technologies of consistent assimilation of the advantages of other transport modes and on development of multimodal transport systems.
Thus, in terms of “innovation renaissance” of the railway sector, railway science, representatives of academic institutions and universities dealing with problems of transport are faced with very serious and creative challenges. Such problems can be solved by combining the scientific potential of the sector and corporate research centres, by involving the competencies of universities and the academic science in joint research and development initiatives, and their integration for solving the strategic tasks of railway transport development.
Andy Doherty, Chairman of the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC)
Railways have always been innovative, they were the creator of the industrial revolution in the early 19th century, they innovated and created the modern world. Railways still have the drive to innovate and deliver better services, BUT they are limited in their ability to change, this is due to the size and cost of the legacy infrastructure, the financing process, and the lack of research and innovation funding in comparison to road and air.
Shift2Rail goes a long way to providing the necessary funding to develop and implement new technology into the railways. The digital revolution, the Internet of everything has huge opportunities, that are not just for ticketing and information but for the process of the whole railway from asset data collection, asset management, maintenance, safety, through to train control and traffic management. This together with robotics, autonomy, 3D printing of the rails and all parts of the railway will see a transformation that S2R will enable and put in our hands.
S2R is also designed to help cover and support the so called research ’valley of death’ the test and validation phases (TRL 4-7) which historically has seen so many good research and innovation ideas fail to turn into reality.
The railways then need to find the ways to finance the rapid implementation of the technologies available. PPP and other private funding schemes funded by the increased capacity and improve services must be fully taken on board to bring forward the new railways.
