Overview
In 2011, the White Paper on European Transport reasserted how fundamental transport was for society, for the mobility of European citizens and for the growth and vitality of the European economy.
CAPACITY4RAIL will deliver research that is innovative, prepares rail for the future and takes into account results from previous research projects and programmes. The project builds on previous usable results and will deliver both technical demonstrations and system wide guidelines and recommendations that will be the basis for future research and investment, increasing the capacities of rail networks in the future.
The time used for infrastructure monitoring, maintenance and renewal means 'down time'. New concepts for low maintenance infrastructure, using standardised and 'plug-and-play' concepts will be proposed. Non-intrusive innovative monitoring techniques or self-monitoring infrastructure will be investigated, allowing low or no impact on train operations.
The fragility of some key components of the infrastructure system (especially in extreme weather conditions) such as switches may impact the efficiency of the whole system. The resilience of switches to any kind of known failure will be reinforced, as well as the ability of the operation system to recover from incidents.
Capacity enhancements will also be achieved by higher speed freight vehicles, allowing an optimised interleaving of freight trains into mixed traffic, and improved planning models for operation.
Intermodal integration within the global transport system will be improved through enhanced transhipment of passengers and freight.
CAPACITY4RAIL will also look towards 2030/2050, by proposing guidelines for future deployments in the mid-term, recommendations for technologies to de developed and deployed in the long term and investigating the key opportunities for funding these within national and EU funding schemes.
Funding
Results
Final Report Summary - CAPACITY4RAIL (Increasing Capacity 4 Rail networks through enhanced infrastructure and optimised operations)
High objectives and expectations are put on railway transport, to be able to take a full part and respond to the upcoming growing demand for both passenger mobility and freight traffic. In 2011, the White Paper on European Transport reasserted how fundamental transport was for...
Executive Summary:
High objectives and expectations are put on railway transport, to be able to take a full part and respond to the upcoming growing demand for both passenger mobility and freight traffic.
In 2011, the White Paper on European Transport reasserted how fundamental transport was for society, for the mobility of European citizens and for the growth and vitality of the European economy. The Paper assigned ambitious challenges to the transport system, in terms of development, durability and competitiveness.
Rail has a major role to face these challenges in this transport system of tomorrow. The railway system has to take a leap forward in competitiveness, and complete its change toward efficiency, sustainability, and integration. Therefore, efforts must be focused on increasing the attractiveness of Rail System.
The Capacity4Rail (C4R) project aims at bringing today’s railway system to this future vision for 2030/2050. Five major criteria have been defined that describe the 2050 railway. The future railway system should be affordable, adaptable, automated, resilient and high-capacity.
With this vision, Capacity4Rail aims at offering an affordable increase of capacity, availability and performance to the railway system, by developing a holistic view on the railway as a system of interacting technical components driven by customer demand.
This plan is addressed by different ways:
- A more efficient use of existing resources, by optimizing operating strategies, enhancing traffic planning, improving transshipment procedures and improving automation and operational procedures to reduce the time needed to recover from traffic disruption (see SP3 “Operation for enhanced capacity”).
- 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 (see SP1 “Infrastructure”, SP2 “New concepts for Efficient Freight Systems” and SP4 “Advanced Monitoring”).
- An increase of the performance of existing resources, through significant improvements of wagons maneuverability and equipment to answer freight customers’ needs for higher reliability and performance (see SP2 “New concepts for Efficient Freight Systems”).
To this end, a coordinated approach was needed, in which combined progresses in infrastructure, freight system, operation techniques and monitoring technologies are defined and pushed further in a system vision. Besides, Capacity4Rail has defined a comprehensive roadmap to describe the necessary steps to develop and implement innovation and to progress from the current state-of-the-art to a shared global vision of the 2050 railway along realistic scenarios.
The Capacity4Rail project has been a continuation of and a contribution to the research and development effort of the European railway community, building on development of previous projects. The project builds on previous results and has deliver both technical demonstrations and system wide guidelines and recommendations that will be the basis for future research and investments.
In addition, the demonstration activities play a crucial role in Capacity4Rail as they enable the assessment of the innovations developed in the project, which will serve to identify room for improvement and will guide their further development.
CAPACITY4RAIL brings together a large range of major active stakeholders of all fields: railway operators; infrastructure managers; track systems suppliers; rolling stock manufacturers; wagon keepers; logistic providers; engineering companies; and research laboratories, all supported by universities on a firm scientific basis. The project has been developed by 46 partners from 13 countries.
List of Websites:
http://www.capacity4rail.eu/