The 15 and 16 June 2015 saw the kick-off of the NeTIRail-INFRA project, a 5.4 million euro project developing future railway technology and infrastructure tailored to the economic, reliability and societal needs of different line types.
NeTIRail-INFRA (Needs Tailored Interoperable Railway Infrastructure) is a 5.4 million euro project led by the University of Sheffield in collaboration with 12 other international partners representing railway operators, infrastructure operators and maintainers, technical industries and research organisations from the UK, France, Romania, Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, Sweden and Slovenia to develop cost effective and interoperable railway infrastructure and technologies which can be tailored to different railway system needs. NeTIRail-INFRA identifies that not all railway lines are the same and face different challenges, therefore the technologies and maintenance requirements should be tailored to suit each environment, some optimal solutions for high speed and high capacity lines will not be the optimal solution for rural lines.
The project will identify solutions suitable for lesser used railway lines and those at risk of closure. This will include technical solutions for reducing costs and understanding the wider economic and societal value of low traffic routes to communities and their contribution to the resilience of the whole network by providing alternative and diversionary routes to mainline services.
NeTIRail-INFRA will address key technology areas and consider the optimisation of these systems with respect to economic and societal impacts.
Technologies addressed include:
- Tailored track infrastructure, design and maintenance
- Tailored overhead line power supply infrastructure
- Monitoring and smart railway technology
The project will also deliver evaluation and decision support tools to enable railway operators and infrastructure managers to identify the technologies and maintenance practices most suited to their specific needs and understand the viability and whole value of each line.
The NeTIRail-INFRA project started on 1 June 2015 and is a three-year collaborative project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme within the 2014-2015 Mobility for Growth call – MG2.1 Intelligent Infrastructure of Mobility for Growth.
UIC as a partner in the Consortium will lead Work Package 6 “IT tools” (WP leader: A. Magnien) and Work Package 7 “Dissemination” (leader: Isabelle De Keyzer), with participation in several other work packages. Over three years the project will generate a cash flow of about one million euros for UIC.
