Overview
The main competition for rail companies comes from other means of transport, such as road transport. European rail companies can help one another to meet this competition. By cooperating they don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel and can learn from each other's initiatives. The TRAINER programme supports this exchange of knowledge and experience with its 'Energy efficiency Network', by organising meetings and by disseminating information on its website.
The objectives of the TRAINER programme are:
- To inform at least five rail companies and 25 000 train drivers how they can improve energy-efficiency on and around the railway;
- To help the rail sector to reduce CO2 emissions by 1 Mton a year;
- To establish a strong network within which European rail companies can share their knowledge and experience of energy-efficiency;
- To secure a long-term agreement on energy efficiency between the government and the rail company in at least three countries;
- To contribute to improving the competitive position of the rail sector (in relation to road transport).
The programme devises and implements custom-made training programmes for:
- train drivers (diesel, electric and lightrail)
- station and cleaning staff
- management of rail companies.
The training programmes include both theory and practice:
- behaviour (ecodriving)
- technology (rolling stock and infrastructure)
- organisation (planning and logistics)
- long-term agreement (LTA)
Results
During the TRAINER project several activities have been going on, which exceeded the actual scope of the project but anyhow had a strong relation with TRAINER. For example the UIC energy billing data exchange (UIC leaflet 930) and refreshed EN 50463 standard are one of the building blocks for proper traction energy data collection. The energy efficiency data of TRAINER and the training programmes of the railway partners will be used as input for the standardised energy billing process and will become available for all the railway operators in the EU. This has been an unexpected but important outcome of TRAINER.
TRAINER initiated also discussions between the railway operators and the railway infrastructure managers regarding the data ownership and data access. This has been a time consuming process. Since the technology and process of the to be installed measurement devices and the analysis of the generated data were new to the railway companies it took a long time to decide and to prepare the plans for the installation of the devices on the locomotives. So one of the results of the TRAINER project is also an increased knowledge and know-how and moreover TRAINER initiated a decision process, which will significantly decrease time and other resources needed for subsequent activities in the future.
During the action 19 550 train drivers have been trained in ecodriving through train-the-trainer activities. Furthermore hundreds of station personnel have been trained and the instruction film and the universal manual have been downloaded and distributed some 500 times. Together this results in an annual CO2 emission avoidance of 0.15 Mton. From 2010 on, when all the
21 450 train drivers will have been trained, the result may mount up to 0.20 Mton/year. An intensification of the training of train drivers may result in a doubling of the CO2 emission avoidance, meaning 0.40 Mton/year.
Through an intense training of all the EU train drivers and/or massive implementation of a sophisticated driver advisory system like the Gekko (used by the Danish railways (DSB)) the CO2 emission avoidance might mount up to 2.4 Mton/year.