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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

Requirements for a decision support tool – Railway capacity IT support

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Description: This deliverable describes the current Shift2Rail work with demonstrator concept – a simulation module Proton and an intelligent planning module M2 – Timo. The intelligent planning module includes a data handling and visualisation component M2 and a timetable modification component, TIMO. Proton is a powerful macrosimulator for national networks. or the future Rail System Architecture.

Target audience: All rail stakeholders; Final users (travellers and freight transport users); Operators (rail operator companies); Infrastructure management companies

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by helping European railways develop future network management processes and methods for rail operators with decision support and automation. It improves the current capacity processes and solves complex capacity problems with many involved actors. The research also contributes to automation in timetables and operational traffic, as well as interaction between actors.

More information on this topic: 

  • Proton (formerly called Prism) was developed in Cross-Cutting Activities projects Plasa 1 and Plasa 2
  • M2-Timo and Proton, research is done in FR8Rail II and FR8Rail III projects.

Long Term Evolution (LTE) equipment under challenging wireless scenarios

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Description: This deliverable evaluates the capabilities of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) V2X technology to fulfil the required performance for a Wireless Train Backbone (WLTB) operating in different challenging environments: depots, stations, tracks and tunnels.

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

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by allowing us to identify the gaps between WLTB requirements and a WLTB based on LTE V2X technology and paves the road towards a 5G powered rail for Europe.

More information on this topic: TD 1.2 – Train Control and Monitoring System Demonstrator


Summary of existing relevant projects and state-of-the-art of AI application in railways

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Description: This deliverable provides a comprehensive review of research projects and scientific papers addressing the state-of-the-art of AI in the railway applied research, covering subdomains such as maintenance and inspection, safety and security, autonomous driving and control, transport planning and management, revenue management, transport policy and passenger mobility.

Target audience: All rail stakeholders

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by providing an in-depth summary of the current research focus. A specific emphasis was devoted to reviewing Shift2Rail projects, basing on publicly available information. From the review findings the deliverable determines some promising research directions to provide further uptake of AI in railways.

More information on this topic: RAILS 


Final version of Shift2Rail’s My-TRAC mobile application

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Description: This deliverable details the development of My-TRAC technologies that aim to provide an improved passenger experience and personalised travel recommendations by utilising an ecosystem of models for user choice simulation, data, and behavioural analytics, and implement different components (i.e., the social market, the operators’ portal, and 3rd parties’ services).

Target audience: Final users (travellers and freight transport users); Operators (rail operator companies)

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by combining different technologies and datasets to be able to provide to its users personalised recommendations. Nowadays, passengers demand accurate and tailored information (points of interest, itineraries, level of crowdedness) to take informed decisions.

More information on this topic: 


Roadmap for My-TRAC mobile application improvements and extension

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Description: This deliverable presents the potential improvements for further development of the My-Trac application, based on the analysis of the onsite pilots and the virtual experiments. It suggests ameliorations to improve the user experience, the usability of the application, and the models integrated in the app.

Target audience: Final users (travellers and freight transport users); Operators (rail operator companies)

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by optimising My-TRAC technologies and extending the application, allowing travellers to have a useful tool of multimodality in their hands that can guide them from A to B and improve their travel experience.

More information on this topic: 


A First modelling framework of Conceptual Data Model (CDM) for use case developments

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Description: This deliverable contains the first modelling framework and the first model structure, including information layers available for Linx4Rail Work Package 4.

Target audience: All rail stakeholders

How it brings us closer to achieving better rail for Europe: It brings us closer by establishing the standard for interactions between legacy and new systems. ensuring sustainable interoperability. It provides the models’ federation, global system modelling specifications and a strategy for implementation of technological breakthroughs.

More information on this topic:  LINX4RAIL 1

Europe's Rail