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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

The Europe’s Rail (EU-Rail) Standardisation and TSI Input Plan (STIP) is a collection of all outputs from EU-Rail (Innovation and System Pillar) which contribute to the goal of harmonisation of the railway system. The harmonisation topics are categorised in technical domains and described by the foreseen harmonisation channel (TSI, EN standards, SP document), the time horizon as well as dependencies with existing regulations, standards, and R&I activities.  

The STIP will facilitate the transfer of Research and Innovation topics from EU-Rail to European regulation and standardisation organisation. Experiences from Shift2Rail, the predecessor of Europe’s Rail, showed that this transfer can be complex to manage and potentially a bottleneck, resulting in slow uptake and deployment of beneficial innovative solutions by the sector.

 

To overcome this bottleneck, the EU-Rail Standardisation and TSI Input Plan shall support a reliable and efficient transfer of the results of EU-Rail to the adequate harmonisation channel, by:

  • proving a structured and transparent outline of all outcomes expected from EU-Rail, with the proposed harmonisation channel and time planning;
  • setting up clearly defined processes in collaboration with the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and the European Standardisation Organisation (ESO) for the delivery of harmonisation topics into their respective working processes. Based on these collaborative processes, STIP topics will go into the TSI revision process, according to the European Commission (EC) request to ERA for TSI revision, as well as into the European standardisation process, considering the EC request for standardisation.
  • introducing a new, EU-Rail internal harmonisation channel, named System Pillar document (as an industrial standard).

The work on the EU-Rail Standardisation and TSI Input Plan started in the Summer of last year with the collection of topics from the System Pillar and Innovation Pillar at Europe’s Rail. A first draft was sent to the sector end of 2023 for review. After a comprehensive revision process, considering the numerous comments made, a revised STIP draft was provided on 17 April 2024. Comments were requested until mid-May. Based on these comments and the alignment process with the European Commission request for TSI revision, the first official version of the STIP is currently under preparation and will be published beginning of July.

The revision process of the STIP included not only the consideration of the comments made by the sector but also the alignment of the scope and time planning for the topics of the EC request for the next TSI revisions. In the future, the STIP will be updated on a yearly basis in line with updates of the TSI revision request.

The revised STIP now includes 31 different categories in which the topics are categorised. The main strategic focus of the proposed harmonisation topics lies on CCS wayside harmonisation and operational harmonisation to promote a harmonised ETCS Level 2 system in Europe including innovative functionalities such as ATO, ASTP and FRMCS, and considering safety and cybersecurity.  Besides, innovations from the Innovation Pillar work for example alternative propulsion, energy management, and digital twin are included.

Each topic is described by a unique ID, a title, a short description, and, if available, more detailed information about the content, the related standards and TSIs, and dependencies with other topics.

The first version of the STIP has been approved in principle at the System Pillar Steering group on 29 May and will be released following the approval of the TSI revision request.

A close collaboration with ERA has been established to ensure the timely transfer of the STIP topics to the ERA CCM process.

Europe's Rail