Overview
Railways have the potential to carry high amounts of goods and passengers under the following conditions: high reliability, less noise emissions, less noxious emissions, high safety standards and less costs. This programme aims to extend these advantages against other transport systems by using innovative technologies.
Principal aims of the ISB programme are:
- to optimise the system vehicle/guide way
- to increase acceptance for rail transport
- to shift goods traffic in favour of the railway, especially along transit routes
ISB relies on four fields of different projects, which comprise fundamental research, institutional research, R&D projects and demonstration - and validation projects.
To support the applicants of the programme, a programme management is conducted by the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology. This management aims to promote ISB itself and provides the applicants with information.
Funding
Funding is provided for research institutes, consultancies, companies which produce either railway specific components or non railway specific components (hardware and software), and IT providers.
The focus is on projects which involve at least two partners (except for fundamental research).
Furthermore cooperation between economy, science and international cooperation's are approved by the ministry.
As already outlined the programme is divided into four different fields: Projects for fundamental research are funded by 100%, projects of institutional research by up to 75%, R&D projects get up to 50% and demonstration- and validation projects up to 25%.
The programme comprises different calls within the programme duration. For the first call EUR 3.4 million are available.