Overview
TRANSIT aims at providing the railway community with a proven set of innovative tools and methodologies to reduce the environmental impact and improve interior acoustic comfort of railway vehicles. Noise is one of the main environmental challenges for the railway industry. Currently vehicle certification and authorisation requires extensive measurement campaigns on dedicated test tracks, leading to high cost and time expenses. In the future virtual certification of railway vehicles and improved authorisation procedures should reduce these expenses. Furthermore, increasing energy efficiency of railway transport is a key goal of Shift2Rail and efforts are ongoing to reduce vehicle weight, e.g. by applying composite material technology in the design of the carbody. However, this could potentially lead to increased interior noise levels as sound insulation is inherently related to mass, hence compromising the interior acoustic comfort.
In this project the next major steps will be taken towards virtual testing, enhanced flexibility and compatibility in authorisation procedures. This will be achieved by developing accurate and robust source characterization and separation methods and techniques, and exterior noise simulation tools that will facilitate virtual testing and more cost-effective vehicle certification and authorisation methods. Regarding interior acoustic comfort, innovative material designs to increase sound transmission loss and absorption will be developed, leading to an improved interior sound quality within the weight constraints.
The TRANSIT consortium has been carefully selected to bring together universities, research institutes and companies with proven expertise in railway noise and vibration and in other important fields such as microphone array technologies and innovative materials. Most TRANSIT participants have been strongly involved in the reference projects Acoutrain and Roll2Rail and many other relevant projects.