Tuesday 29 January 2019

Final Conference of the Shift2Rail IP3 Project IN2TRACK held on 22 January 2019 at UIC, Paris

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On 22 January 2019, the Final Conference of the Shift2Rail JU funded IP3 Project IN2TRACK took place at the UIC headquarters in Paris.

IN2TRACK (Research into Enhanced Tracks, Switches and Structures) is a €6.4 million collaborative R&D project partly funded by the Shift2Rail JU within the Horizon 2020 programme. This 30-month project is coordinated by Trafikverket and has a total of 25 partners from 10 different European countries.

Attended by more than 70 participants from 18 countries across the European railway community and beyond, the IN2TRACK Final Conference was the opportunity to share the results of the project aimed at setting the foundations for a resilient, consistent, cost-efficient, high capacity European network by delivering important building blocks that unlock the innovation potential identified as part of the Shift2Rail-JU Innovation Programme.

Mr Nikolaos Athanasopoulos, Shift2Rail JU programme manager, and Mr Sam Berggren, project coordinator, opened the conference and presented IN2TRACK’s role in the Shift2Rail programme as well as the main objectives of the project.
Featuring a good balance between sector activities, the conference then included presentations of results from the three technical Work Packages:

  • WP2 – Enhanced switches and crossings
  • WP3 – Enhanced track
  • WP4 – Structures (tunnels and bridges)

Over the lifespan of the project, the IN2TRACK partners have made extensive efforts to better understand key phenomena in the technical areas and develop methods to predict how these phenomena will evolve over time under different operational conditions. The IN2TRACK partners have also developed new techniques for repair and upgrade to reduce traffic disruption. Their work includes the development of safer methods of assessment for tunnels and bridges, such as the use of embedded sensors for self-diagnostics and condition and of methods to reduce noise and vibration.

After the presentation of the technical results, a round table was organised to allow further questions from the audience related to the findings of the project and future work anticipated for IN2TRACK2. This round table, animated by Mr Simon Fletcher (UIC) was composed of Mr Nikolaos Athanasopoulos from the Shift2Rail JU, Mr Sam Berggren and Mr Anders Ekberg (Trafikverket), Ms Melanie Denley and Mr Andrew Turner (Network Rail), Mr Samir Assaf (Railenium) and Mr Carlos Hermosilla (Acciona) representing the different areas of research in IN2TRACK and the different categories of members in the project.

To conclude the day, Mr Sam Berggren officially passed on the torch to the coordinator of IN2TRACK2, Mr Yusuf Tross from Network Rail.

This project has received funding from the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 730841.

For further information, please contact Mr Sam Berggren, Coordinator of the project:

Write to Sam Berggren

Or Christine Hassoun, Dissemination Coordinator of EU co-funded R&D projects:

hassoun

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