Projects

Ben@Rail:

For the future Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking to be successful, the innovations stemming from its Master Plan must adhere to the needs of railway stakeholders and final users. Ben@Rail contributes to the success of the new Undertaking by applying a scientifically proven methodology to quantify the efficacy of EU-funded R&I activities. To reach this objective, Ben@Rail will provide evidence-based research to assess the extent to which the foreseen innovations of Shift2Rail and its successor respond to clear societal cases and stakeholders’ and users’ expectations. To achieve this, Ben@Rail, in close cooperation with the European Rail Research Advisory Council (ERRAC), will develop a top-down analysis grounded on two elements. On the one side, the requirements of the rail sector stakeholders vis a vis EU-funded research are identified. On the other side, the sector’s strategic documents are reviewed and analysed in light of the stakeholders’ expected benefits and the wider societal challenges to extract objectives, key technical concepts and development areas that will affect and shape the Railway System of the future. The resulting analysis will assess the adherence of EU-funded R&I activities to the stakeholders’ requirements, thus evaluating the expected outcomes of the future new Joint Undertaking Master Plan. Ben@Rail will develop a scientific, innovative framework for the evaluation of EU-funded projects based on the stakeholders’ requirements. One of the strengths of this framework relies on its possible application in other sectors to comprehensively investigate future funding R&I programmes. Ben@Rail will benefit from a consortium composed of three renowned scientific centres in the field of rail research, committed to the mentioned actions and towards the maximisation of the project’s impacts by communicating and promoting its outcomes to the scientific community, rail stakeholders and policymakers.

  01.12.2018 – 31.05.2020, 31 partners from 13 countries.

H2020 815001. grant agreement No 815001. 

Drive2theFuture aims to prepare “drivers”, travelers and vehicle operators of the future to accept and use connected, cooperative and automated transport modes and the industry of these technologies to understand and meet their needs and wants. To achieve this, it models the behaviour of different automated vehicle “drivers” & prognoses acceptance for several automated driving scenarios, develops specialized training tools (3D automated scenarios for VR-goggles, web applications and social media platforms), content, optimized HMI for “driver”-vehicle handovers, CEA and MCA studies for selection of most favorable automated functions realisation and then demonstrates them in 12 Pilots across Europe,and in 3 major events.

Pilots cover all automated transportation modes (Automated car, PTW, truck, bus, minibus, rail, workboat and drones) and involve driving/riding/rail simulators, VR/AR simulation toolkits, test tracks and real world environments, in which over 1000 AV drivers/passengers, 200 AV operators and 20000 involved citizens experience automation from few hours to 6 months. KPI’s, such as user acceptance, user awareness/appreciation of actual automated function performance (gap between expectations and reality), automated operation efficiency and cost effectiveness, are defined and will be followed through subjective and objective (conflicts analysis) tools.

The automated vehicles “driver”/rider/operator behaviour will be modelled and due emphasis is given to cross fertilisation issues among different modes. The project will also research relevant legal, ethical and operational issues (with strong user involvement through FIA and 4 of its Clubs, UITP and IRU), the interaction between automated vehicles and relevant MaaS and will issue guidelines, policy recommendations and a user acceptance path Roadmap to Automation. This challenging task is undertaken by 31 Partners from 13 European countries; through 10 interrelated workpackages, over 36 months.

• Duration: May 2019 – May 2022
• Budget: €3.9 million
• Coordinator: CERTH
• Partners: STATENS VAG- OCH TRANSPORTFORSKNINGSINSTITUT (VTI), TRANSPORTOKONOMISK INSTITUTT (TOI), NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS – NTUA (NTUA), UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA LA SAPIENZA (CTL), VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL (VUB), UNIVERSIDAD DE LA IGLESIA DE DEUSTO ENTIDAD RELIGIOSA (UDEUSTO), INSTITUT FRANCAIS DES SCIENCES ET TECHNOLOGIES DES TRANSPORTS, DE L’AMENAGEMENT ET DES RESEAUX (IFSTTAR), SWARCO MIZAR SRL (SWM), EURNEX, DEEP BLUE, Fraunhofer, TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN (TUM), FZI FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM INFORMATIK (FZI), IRU PROJECTS ASBL (IRU), HUMANIST, FOUNDATION WEGEMT, AIT AUSTRIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, UITP, FONDATION PARTENARIAL MOV’EOTEC VED, PIAGGIO, FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE L’AUTOMOBILE (FIA), IAM RoadSmart), POLSKI ZWIAZEK MOTOROWY, Wiener Linien), TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT BERLIN (TUB), TUCO, INFILI TECH), STELAR, AUTOMOBIL CLUB ASSISTENCIA SA (ACASA), VIAS

RIDE2RAIL

01/12/2019 – 31/05/2022, 17 partners from 10 countries.

grant agreement No 881825. Shift2Rail.

Travel Companion enhancements and RIDE-sharing services syncronised to RAIL and Public Transport.

The RIDE2RAIL project aims to develop solutions and tools that will facilitate the efficient combination of ride-sharing and scheduled transport services such as bus and rail.

By making it easier to compare and choose between multiple transport options and services, RIDE2RAIL seeks to make ride-sharing a (more) attractive way to move passengers towards public transport services and at the same time fight congestion and pollution.

The project will integrate multiple (public/private/social) data sets and existing transport platforms to make ride-sharing a complementary transport mode that extends public transport and rail networks.

GEARBODIES is a 25 month project (01/12/2020 – 31/01/2022) financed by the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101013296 with 13 partners from 8 countries.

The success of the European rail system to foster the modal shift towards rail requires cost-efficient and reliable long-lasting trains. GEARBODIES contributes to this effort by improving the efficiency of rolling stock maintenance in close collaboration with the ongoing CFM-IP1-01-2019 (PIVOT2). To achieve the above, GEARBODIES follows a twofold approach: extending overhaul periods and improving maintenance processes. The extension of overhaul periods will be facilitated by developing high-performance and long-lifetime components for running gear. The improvement of maintenance processes will be boosted by developing innovative NDT technologies to optimise inspection processes for lightweight carbody shells. GEARBODIES will design and prototype several elastomer-metal running gear components, suitable for serial production, based on high-performance new elastomer formulations and existing elastomers not yet applied in rolling stock elements. In addition, the project will also explore innovative technologies for the development of low LCC bearings. New lubrication solutions, new materials for races and rollers, novel polymers for cages and the effects of new bearing geometries will be researched, among which the most feasible ones will be integrated in a new bearing design and prototyped. GEARBODIES will develop an innovative modular platform to reduce the inspection time of lightweight carbody shells. The platform will incorporate tailored thermography and ultrasonic inspection systems and will facilitate the automated detection and assessment of defects throughout the thickness of the shell by using a customed software module. GEARBODIES will benefit form a strong multidisciplinary consortium, made of 13 partners from 8 countries, committed to the mentioned actions towards maximisation of the project’s impact.