Meeting of CAPACITY4RAIL project in Prague
On 20 January 2016 OLTIS Group hosted partners of CAPACITY4RAIL research project in Prague. The objective of this one-day meeting was to discuss the tasks and aims of sub-project SP4 concerning the advanced monitoring of railway infrastructure.
The meeting was attended by project participants from 6 European countries and was held in a meeting room of the Railway Infrastructure Administration (SŽDC). Partners from the following organisations took part: Deutsche Bahn, Trafikverket, ACCIONA Infraestructuras, Infraestruturas de Portugal, CEMOSA, Adevice Solutions, University of Birmingham, Uppsala Universitet, Universidade do Porto and OLTIS Group. Other two partners participated in a meeting online via video conference: ANSALDO STS and Chalmers University of Technology Foundation.
CAPACITY4RAIL is a project of the last sixth call from the European Union´s 7th Framework Programme for Research. The project´s budget is 20 milion euros and in the project are included 46 stakeholders from 13 European countries and Turkey, while the consortium is well represented by the activities within the railway sector (including partners like UIC, UNIFE, SNCF, Trafikverket, DB, Network Rail) under support of significant research organisations and universities. The main objective of the project is a proposal for enhancing of capacity, availability and efficiency of railway system by immense changes.
CAPACITY4RAIL aims at paving the way for the future railway system, delivering coherent, demonstrated, innovative and sustainable solutions for:
- Track design: transversal approach for infrastructure solutions for conventional mixed traffic and very high speed, integrated monitoring and power supply, reduced maintenance, new concept for highly reliable switches and crossings.
- Freight: longer trains, lower tare loads, automatic coupling, enhanced braking, modern, automated, intelligent, fully integrated system for efficient, reliable and profitable freight operations
- Operation and capacity: traffic capacity computation for freight and passenger, models and simulators for planners: capacity generation, traffic flow, resilience to perturbations, ability to recover from disturbance, computerised real time information to customers and operators at any time
- Advanced monitoring: Integration of Advanced Monitoring Technologies in the design and building process, for a easier-to-monitor (self monitoring) infrastructure with low cost and low impact inspection
CAPACITY4RAIL focuses on systems analysis and systematic approach to the issue of the railway and its requirements for years 2030 – 2050. Project C4R is one of the most important input parameters of SHIFT2RAIL and consists of five sub-projects (SP).
Sub-project SP4 deals with an advanced monitoring. The objective of SP4 is to develop new concepts for railway structural and operational monitoring to enhance the availability of the track combined with automated maintenance forecasts, a prediction of the structural lifetime, a fast-check of track and structures after natural hazards and a support for train operation by train monitoring.
