InteGRail - Intelligent Integration of Railway Systems
Overview
Background & policy context:
The growing demand for mobility in Europe requires an efficient and well-integrated railway system; one which can cope with all the technical, logistical and environmental constraints, to enable sustainable growth of the enlarged European Union.
ERRAC, the European Rail Research Advisory Council, proposed the target of doubling rail passenger traffic and tripling rail freight traffic by the year 2020. Responding to ERRAC's challenge, the InteGRail project intended to improve railway performance by better cooperation and information exchange between the different subsystems, allowing for a global optimisation at system level.
Currently, increasingly larger amounts of information are accessible from all of the railway subsystems. A number of information systems are also available where information is stored for immediate or later usage. Unfortunately, most information is produced in proprietary formats and its circulation is limited to specific subsystems and applicative platforms. This can create or increase barriers to a wider flow and usage of information, as is required by new and advanced methodologies. These problems are emphasised when considering an international context, for example one of the European corridors, where the number of systems, actors and networks involved can become huge and ad hoc solutions are impossible.
Objectives:
The InteGRail project aimed to create a holistic, coherent information system, integrating the major railway sub-systems in order to achieve higher levels of performance of the railway system in terms of capacity, average speed and punctuality, safety and the optimised use of resources. Building on results achieved by previous projects, InteGRail proposed new intelligent procedures and contributed to the definition of new standards, in accord with EC directives and technical specifications for interoperability (TSI).
The project will not replace existing systems but it will be used in conjunction with them. InteGRail favours a higher level of interoperability of railway information systems, easier information sharing and increased global optimisation and performance.
Meeting ERRAC's goal means reducing costs and enhancing environmental sustainability, while maintaining a high level of safety, compared to other transport modes. InteGRail is crucial to meeting these challenges.
The specific goals included:
- reliability improved by up to 50% for targeted systems through optimised maintenance;
- 30% availability improvement and reduction in irregularities;
- 10% reduction in maintenance costs;
- 5% increase in punctuality;
- increased capacity in line with ERRAC objectives;
- information sharing within the railway community, enabling optimisation of decision-making for improved performance.
Methodology:
Due to its size and complexity, the project was divided into a number of sub-projects (SP):
- SP1: Project management, integration activities and horizontal support.
- SP2: System requirements, architecture and continuous assessment, identifying information that needs to be shared.
- SP3A: Intelligent system monitoring and control to ensure that the right information can be obtained.
- SP3B: Intelligent system maintenance, identifying ways of using information more effectively for maintenance optimisation.
- SP3C: Intelligent system management, identifying ways of combining and using information effectively for management requirements.
- SP3D: Advanced system communication, ensuring that information can be transmitted effectively to decision-makers.
- SP4: System integration, testing and validation, demonstrating performance improvement.
By creating innovative concepts in the areas of train control and monitoring, maintenance, management and communications, InteGRail set out to re-define the basic elements required by each system. The project assessed the needs of rolling stock, infrastructure, traffic management (including the European Rail Traffic Management System, ERTMS), train operations and proposed intelligent procedures to process all available additional information to its best advantage.
Share this page