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          Discover Innovation pillar
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          Innovation Pillar

          EU-Rail’s Innovation Pillar (IP) is tasked to deliver operational and technological solutions that contribute to a more efficient, flexible, and demand-led, yet safe and environmentally sustainable European railway system. The activities undertaken aim at large-scale demonstrations and they also cover technologies of all readiness levels as well as exploratory research.

          Explore System pillar

          About

          The System Pillar is the “generic system integrator” for the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (EU-Rail), and the architect of the future EU’s railway system.

          Outputs

          Discover key outputs from the System Pillar.

          Governance

          Discover the Governance structure and key decisions from the System Pillar.

          Key documents

          Discover the System Pillar document library.

          Discover System pillar

          System Pillar

          The System Pillar provides governance, resource, and outputs to support a coherent and coordinated approach to the evolution of the rail system and the development of the system view.

          Discover Deployment Group
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          Deployment Group

          The Deployment Group advises the EU-Rail Governing Board on the market uptake of rail innovation developments and support their deployment. Its activities thus form a bridge between the research and innovation process and the coordinated implementation through recommendations for deployment in the rail system.

          Explore the DAC Delivery Programme

          For a successful and effective implementation of the Digital Automatic Coupler for European rail freight (DAC), it is of crucial importance to have open, close and efficient cooperation between rail stakeholders. The European DAC Delivery Programme enabled by Europe’s Rail, offers a unique European platform for such cooperation and collaboration.

          About Shift2Rail

          Explore more information about the Europe's Rail predecessor programme.

          Explore Shift2Rail

          Shift2Rail Programme

          Explore the detailed information about the Shift2Rail Innovation Programmes.

          Organisation

          Explore the structure of the Shift2Rail programme.

          Shift2Rail Projects

          Get a glimpse of the Shift2Rail Projects and their achievements.

          Discover Shift2Rail

          The Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking is the predecessor programme of the Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking (EU-Rail), established by Council Regulation (EU) 2021/2085 of 19 November 2021.

           

        • Projects

          Discover detailed information on Europe's rail innovation initiatives, showcasing flagship and other projects aimed at enhancing rail systems across Europe. It highlights collaborative efforts funded by the European Union to develop sustainable, efficient, and competitive rail transport solutions.

           

          Solutions catalogue

          Europe’s Rail Catalogue of Solutions illustrates successful R&I results in the form of possible products and solutions, while highlighting the benefits for final users, operators, infrastructure managers and/or suppliers. This publication also outlines the advantages of integrating demonstrators into market solutions so that they can deliver the rail innovation Capabilities of the future.

        • Who we are?

          About Europe's Rail

          Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (EU-Rail) is established by Council Regulation (EU) 2021/2085 of 19 November 2021. It is the new European partnership on rail research and innovation established under the Horizon Europe programme (2020-2027) and the universal successor of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking.

           

          Explore About Europe's Rail

          Mission and objectives

          The objective of Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking is to deliver a high capacity integrated European railway network by eliminating barriers to interoperability and providing solutions for full integration, covering traffic management, vehicles, infrastructure and services, aiming to achieve faster uptake and deployment of projects and innovations.

          Preparatory Activities

          Discover the the processes and background information on the preparation of the Joint Undertaking.

          Jobs

          Browse latest Europe's Rail vacancies.

          Discover Europe's Rail Members

          Find out the full list of Europe's Rail Members.

           

          Explore Structure of Governance

          Governing Board & General Assembly

          The Europe's Rail Governing Board oversees Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking, guiding strategy, budgets, and work plans. It includes the European Commission and rail industry stakeholders, aiming to innovate and integrate Europe's rail systems, boosting efficiency, sustainability, and alignment with EU Green Deal goals.

          States Representatives Group

          The Europe's Rail States Representatives Group advises the Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking. It comprises representatives from EU member states and associated countries, ensuring alignment of Europe's Rail activities with national policies, facilitating cooperation, and providing input on rail innovation, integration, and sustainable development across Europe.

          Scientific Steering Group

          The Europe's Rail Scientific Steering Group provides scientific and technical advice to the Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking. Comprising experts from academia and research institutions, it ensures that research projects align with cutting-edge science and innovation, supporting the development of a modern, sustainable European rail system.

          Executive Director

          Find out more information about the Europe's Rail Executive Director.

          Discover Structure of Governance

          Discover the full structure and governance of Europe's Rail, including the decisions of the Governing Board.

           

          Explore Reference Documents

          Key Documents

          Discover main Europe's Rail documentation.

          Annual Work Plan and Budget

          Find out about our key priortires in our Annual Work Plans and Budget.

          Annual Activity Report

          Discover the progress of our programme by downloading Europe's Rail Annual Activity Reports.

          Annual Accounts

          Have a full overview of Europe's Rail Annual Accounts.

          Functioning of the Europe's Rail JU

          Discover key documentation describing the general functioning of the JU.

          Discover Reference Documents

          Get access to Europe's Rail main reference documents, including Annual Work Plans, Annual Activity Reports, Annual Accounts and other important information.

           

News

Predefined messages that enable the driver and the traffic controller to communicate despite language barriers

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Description: Translate4Rail offers drivers a comprehensive set of predefined standardised messages (PDMs) to exchange with an infrastructure manager traffic controller (signaller) in normal or exceptional operational situations in a country where they do not understand nor speak the local language. Besides the list of agreed PDMs a digital tool using these messages will be implemented to enable the driver and the traffic controller to make the communication easier and ensure they understand each other even though each of them speaks in his/her native language.

Target audience: All rail stakeholders

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It bring us closer by implementing a “drive through philosophy” across borders making rail easier to use and more attractive to customers. This is will contribute to drive modal shift towards a sustainable transport mode, thus benefitting society at large.

More information on this topic: Translate4Rail project website


Knowledge transfer of rail’s needs, challenges and opportunities, and exploratory research strategy

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Description: A summary of the key findings and recommendations of TER4RAIL, namely: Overview of innovative research in mobility, opportunities for collaboration with non-rail sectors, overview of key rail and other mobility research roadmaps, gaps of the rail roadmaps, key arguments supporting rail, SWOT analysis of rail transportation.

Target audience: All rail stakeholders

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by identifying synergies for a more successful multimodal rail research in Horizon Europe. It gives paths for having railways considered in non-railway roadmaps as the key mode to be integrated with. Finally it reports success stories of railways in urban/rural, high speed and freight with large margin of growth, cost advantages in scale economies (while sustainable) together with important societal benefits.

More information on this topic: Ter4Rail project website 


Application roadmap for the introduction of virtual coupling

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Description: This deliverable identified the technical and operational railway system components that are affected by moving towards Virtually-Coupled Train Sets, along with their required step-changes. Scenario-based roadmaps were developed based on assessed priorities, durations and time orders of these step-changes for optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for the various market segments.

Target audience: Operators (rail operator companies), Infrastructure management companies, Suppliers (vehicle and part manufacturers)

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by providing a long-term strategy for a gradual transition towards the deployment of Virtual Coupling that will enable a significant increase in infrastructure capacity and operational efficiency.

More information on this topic: Technical Demonstrator on Virtually Coupled Train Sets 


Long Term Evolution Equipment under Challenging Wireless Scenarios

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Description: This output evaluates the performance of Long Term Evolution (LTE) – V2X technology for a Wireless Train Backbone (WLTB) operating in four different environments: depot, station, track and tunnels.

Target audience: Operators (rail operator companies), Infrastructure management companies, Suppliers (vehicle and part manufacturers)

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by identifying the gaps between WLTB requirements and the capabilities of a WLTB based on LTE V2X technology.

More information on this topic: Technical Demonstrator on Train Control and Monitoring System 


Definition of functions for Driver Machine Interface standardisation and Functional Open Coupling visualisation 

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Description: This output collects the information to be visualized as well as the requirements for visualization on Driver Machine Interface (DMI) from operator point of view for the Next Generation TCMS. The result of this work will be an input to progress with the completeness of the CLC/TR 50542 series in relation to the communication between the Train Display Controller (TDC) and the Other Train System (OTS).

Target audience: Operators (rail operator companies) and Suppliers (vehicle and part manufacturers)

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by collecting the new information needed for DMI from Next Generation TCMS, providing the needed input to extend the CLC/TR 50542 series in order to cover these features.

More information on this topic: Technical Demonstrator on Train Control and Monitoring System 


Contractual management specifications on interoperability features 

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Description: The Contractual Management Specifications Document (D10.1) contains an analysis of different expectations, gains and challenges of the interoperability features. Within the analysis, perspectives of transport industry actors and travellers are taken into account and mapped to the overall S2R –IP4 solutions. Agreement templates for transport industry actors were also provided.

Target audience: Final users

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by improving the rail system by analysing regulations, agreements, needs and expectations. Interoperability and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) are key factors for moving inland passenger traffic to sustainable transport modes, especially rail. Interoperability is based on the cooperation between all players involved in transportation.

More information on this topic: MaaSive project website 

Europe's Rail