This proposal has been developed to tackle the two main challenges related to Traction systems and Adhesion highlighted in the Call text. 

The traction sub-project will address these objectives as follows: 

• Railway system LCC reduction. Traction system cost reduction by reduction in validation & certification cost via simplification, harmonization of rules and shifting/replacement of “on site” certification experiments by numerical simulation and/or static test bench tests. 
• Operational reliability increases via higher reliability/availability of components. Progress on methodologies and tools in these fields, especially in WP4 & WP13, will be applied to new Traction systems developed within the project. The benefit will be a dramatic reduction in the number of In-service failures per million km; 
• Train & Line capacity increase through weight, volume and noise savings of Traction equipment. These improvements will permit new train architectures to increase the number of seats and/or passengers' comfort.

The main specific objectives of adhesion management for brakes are:

• Improvement of braking degradation limit in poor adhesion condition 
• Management of all adhesion conditions in a way that brake distances are optimized
• Improvement of the overall train safety for braking, which relies substantially on the management of the wheel/rail contact
• Reduction of wheel Life-Cycle-Costs (LCCs) through optimized wheel/rail contact in braking