Capacity4Rail

Towards an affordable, resilient, innovative and high-capacity European Railway System for 2030/2050

Launched in October 2013, Capacity4Rail is a four year collaborative research project funded by the European Commission under its 7th Framework programme. Placed under the coordination of UIC, it brings together a wide range of stakeholders, in an ambitious partnership.

Following the White Paper on European Transports published in 2011, Capacity4Rail proposes to bring a system vision of the railways looking towards 2030/2050, by developing new concepts in the fields of infrastructure, freight, operation and monitoring, towards an affordable, resilient, innovative and high-capacity railway system.

The crucial research and development benefit of Capacity4Rail lies in the systemic and holistic approach to the development of new concepts for future infrastructure, vehicles, communication, and operation technologies.

The capacity issue is addressed in three different ways:

• A more efficient use of existing resources, by optimising operating strategies, enhancing traffic planning, improving transshipment procedures and improving automation and operational procedures to reduce the time needed to recover from traffic disruption
• A reduction of the non-operational capacity-consumers, through the design of resilient, reliable and low-maintenance infrastructure and vehicles, non-intrusive inspection, fast renewal and construction processes
• An increase of the performance of existing resources, through significant improvements of wagons manoeuvrability and equipment to answer freight customers’ needs for higher reliability and performance

To be held on 3 November 2016, this second dissemination workshop will be the opportunity to promote the project’s achievements at 36 months of activity.
At this stage, most of the work on innovation development will be completed and the project will enter the demonstration and assessment phase.

Workshop highlights:

• The new slab track concepts
• The new concepts for high speed
• The materials and monitoring for innovative Switches and Crossings
• Innovative wagons for freight
• Optimisation of terminal operations
• Ubiquitous data for railway operations
• Innovative sensors and monitoring strategies
• Multicriteria assessment strategy
• Recommendations to achieve the project’s vision for the Railway System of 2050

Recommendations to achieve the project’s vision for the Railway System of 2050…
Ample time will be reserved for discussion and exchange with the project partners.

Online registration and useful information

The draft programme will be published in the next few days on the online registration page http://www.capacity4rail.eu/-news-

Register online in order to secure your place at this event and find out more information on how to access the venue by clicking here:

http://www.capacity4rail.eu/-news-

NeTIRail-INFRA

Needs Tailored Interoperable Railway Infrastructure

The Mid-Term Conference of the NeTIRail-INFRA project, a 5.4 million euro project developing future railway technology and infrastructure tailored to the economic, reliability and societal needs of different line types, will be held on 4 November 2016 in Brussels.

Funded by the European Commission under its Horizon 2020 programme, NeTIRail-INFRA (Needs Tailored Interoperable Railway Infrastructure) is led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with 12 other international partners representing railway operators, infrastructure operators and maintainers, technical industries and research organisations from the UK, France, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, Sweden and Slovenia to develop cost effective and interoperable railway infrastructure and technologies which can be tailored to the needs of different categories of rail systems.

NeTIRail-INFRA identifies that not all railway lines are the same and face different challenges, therefore the technologies and maintenance requirements should be tailored to suit each environment – certain solutions for high speed and high capacity lines will not be the best solution for rural lines.

This project is identifying solutions suitable for lesser used railway lines and those at risk of closure; high capacity lines and freight dominated routes. This will include technical solutions for reducing costs and understanding the wider economic and societal value of low traffic routes to communities and their contribution to the resilience of the whole network by providing alternative and diversionary routes to mainline services.

Key technology areas addressed in the project include:

• Tailored track infrastructure, design and maintenance
• Tailored overhead line power supply infrastructure
• Monitoring and smart railway technology

The project will also deliver evaluation and decision support tools to enable railway operators and infrastructure managers to identify the technologies and maintenance practices most suited to their specific needs and understand the viability and whole value of each line.

This conference will update partners on the progress in the first 18 months of the project, presenting some of the early results and the plans for the remainder of the project, as well as discussion regarding future development and collaborations.

Highlights from the conference will include:

• Sensing and measurement technology – an update on the installation of the on-vehicle, track side and overhead line monitoring systems in Romania, Turkey and Slovenia
• The results of the GIS mapping of track and overhead line failures and costs
• The development of the track models for developing solutions for minimising corrugation development and transition zone maintenance
• Lean improvement of S&C maintenance operations and installation
• The development of the overhead line models leading to minimised life cycle cost of overhead line for the different railway systems
• Use of the SATLOC system for data transmission from on-vehicle monitoring systems
• An update on the development of the decision support tool

The conference also intends to address the commonalities between the NeTIRail-INFRA project and the Shift2Rail programme, and identify areas for further collaborations.

Online registration and useful information:

The draft programme will be published in the next few days on the online registration page

http://netirail.eu/News-and-Events

Register online in order to secure your place at this event and find out more information on how to access the venue by clicking here:

http://netirail.eu/News-and-Events

The NeTIRail-INFRA project started on 1 June 2015 and is a three-year collaborative project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme within the 2014-2015 Mobility for Growth call – MG2.1 Intelligent Infrastructure of Mobility for Growth.