Since 2008, the twelve railway companies’ members of the “European Charter for development of social initiatives in stations” have shared concerns regarding persons living in highly precarious circumstances in the stations. Indeed, the presence of such a public is challenging the usual practices of railway agents in stations (service agents, security agents, maintenance agents, cleaning agents etc.).Several issues are common. Firstly, the agents working in station feel, more often than not, helpless when dealing with homeless persons. They express an urgent need of information on homeless people’s situation and training regarding the existing social intervention schemes and techniques. Secondly, the programmes already implemented in the railway companies have not been made durables or capitalised. Co-construction is at the heart of the “TRAIN in Stations” project. Its goal is to create and implement a common training programme, on the basis of what already exists and on the development of truly innovative modules, built from a common reflection shared by all the actors intervening in stations.The project aims at preparing the first European class on social intervention in stations, and to implement and evaluate a first training session in each company.Seven entities from five European countries are members of this project. Five railway companies, Bulgaria (National Railway Infrastructure Company), France (Société Nationale des Chemin de fer Français), Italy (Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) and Luxemburg (Société nationale des chemins de fer luxembourgeois) and two NGOs : the Italian social cooperative Europe Consluting Onlus and the French non-governmental organisation Agence Nouvelle des Solidarités Actives. Each of these entities has a strong expertise regarding training and experiences of everyday social assistance and management.The project “TRAIN in Stations” lays on several transnational and regular meetings. In a concern for good governance, several collective workshops will be organised every five months in the cities involved in the project (Luxemburg, Paris, Rome and Sofia). The objectives of the meetings are:- Sharing knowledge and goof practices among national trainers (site-seeing)- Co-constructing the training programme- Planning a steering committee meeting, with one member representativeThese five European meetings will address different issues of the training session in order to build together with the trainers and the managers the common training program, and with the help of experts on social issues in stations. These meetings will be built on a clear co-constructive stance. In that regard, the national and sectorial diversity will allow a truly comprehensive reflection regarding the current practices. It will constitute a great richness for the constitution of a common project, based on points of view and experiences sharing.In order to achieve this methodological aim, different methods are to be used: focus-groups with homeless persons, active sites-seeing (exchanges with local social actors), capitalising and reflecting periods and construction time around concrete supports (such as e-learning or trainers’guide).The emphasis on practices’ capitalisation and needs’ analysis will allow the development of truly innovative methods and tools, adapted to the different European settings. The use of e-learning methods will facilitate this process.For each company, training programmes will be implemented which should make professional practices change. On an European level, the “TRAIN in Stations” project should steer and innovative dynamics between European companies, especially the ones signatory of the Charter.In the long run, the “TRAIN in Stations” project hopes to disseminate good practices regarding training programmes on the European territory and create a positive dynamics vis à vis social care for homeless persons.

CYBERWISER.EU pragmatically addresses, in the DS-07-2017 call, the urgent need to count on highly-skilled, multi-disciplined cybersecurity professionals, given the increasingly aggressive cyber-landscape that Europe and the world is facing. CYBERWISER.EU will be an educational, collaborative, real-time civil cyber range platform where cybersecurity competitions will take place, making it the EU’s reference, authoritative, independent cybersecurity platform for professional training. Users can play the role of attackers and/or defenders in different scalable and configurable scenarios, composed of a set of virtual resources representing a company ICT infrastructure. The platform will be completely web-based, to facilitate adoption, collaborative support from end-users and continuous upgrade. CYBERWISER.EU expands and builds on the results and users community of the H2020 IA named WISER [2015-2017], thereby providing a jump-start situation from a consolidated raising awareness and past investment point of view. The 9 domain-skilled partners from 7 European Countries bring relevant assets to the project and are complementary and include 3 full-scale pilots (2 of which in critical infrastructures), viz.: 1. energy distribution; 2. railroad transport; 3. High Education, in the specific context of a University Master course on cybersecurity. An influential Stakeholder Expert Board (SEB) supports the consortium. Main Outputs: An Innovative, fully integrated cyber range platform; economic risk models attack patterns with mitigation measures; specialised training documentation with methodology; 3 Full-scale Pilots; one Open Pilot Stream targeting 500+ individuals from at least 5 different verticals; 750+ trained professionals; Sustainability model & business plan. High visibility through 4 workshops, 2 hackathons, 6 webinars, presence at 50+ specialised events. Profiled database of 2000+ records from 11 stakeholder groups.

Assets4Rail shares the Shift2Rail view of having an ageing European railway infrastructure that needs to cope with the expected increased traffics in the future. Likewise, reliable rolling stock will be required to crystallize the desired modal shift to rail. Both goals relay on a proactive and cost-effective maintenance and intervention system in the assets. Assets4Rail aims to contribute to this modal shift by exploring, adapting and testing cutting-edge technologies for railway asset monitoring and maintenance. To achieve that, Assets4Rail follows a twofold approach, including infrastructure (tunnel, bridges, track geometry, and safety systems) and vehicles. A dedicated information model (BIM) will be the keystone of the infrastructure part of the project. This model with integrated algorithms will gather and analyze the information collected by specific sensors which will monitor subsurface tunnel defects, fatigue consumption, noise and vibrations of bridges as well as track geometry. On the other hand, train monitoring will include the installation of track-side and underframe imaging automated system to collect data for detecting specific types of defects that have non-negligible impacts on infrastructure. The additional use of the RFID technology will enable the smooth identification of trains and single elements, associated with the identified rolling stock failures. The combination of mentioned real-time collected data with existing data along the implementation of deep learning techniques for assessing large data volumes will pave the way towards a cost-effective and proactive maintenance process of infrastructure and rolling stock. In addition, two innovative intervention methods, noise rail dampers and the cleaning of long tunnel drainage pipes, will be validated on field. Assets4Rail will benefit from a strong multidisciplinary consortium committed to concrete exploitation activities aligned towards the achievement of the challenging project objectives.

Regional railway (lines with lower usage or secondary network) plays a crucial role not only in serving European regions, but also as feeders for passenger and freight traffic for the main/core network. Therefore, they have an essential function as an environmentally friendly mode of transport. In addition is as well essential their link to other public transport services (e.g. bus) and to first and last mile services, such as bikesharing, cycling, walking or driving to get from/to stations to remote locations. Unfortunately, many of these routes were abandoned in the past - mainly due to high costs. Therefore, these rail lines need to be revitalized or even renewed to make them economically, socially and environmentally sustainable and to meet current customer needs and challenges The overall objectives of the FutuRe project are to ensure the long-term viability of the regional railway by reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO), while ensuring high service quality and operational reliability. It also aims to increase customer satisfaction and to make rail an attractive and preferred mode of transport. Therefore, the main objectives of FutuRe are: lowering CAPEX system costs, increasing productivity by lowering OPEX (unit costs per train kilometre), and improving customer satisfaction. These goals are to be achieved through a concept tailored to regional railways but transferable across Europe, encompassing digitalisation, automation and the use of common and new technologies for signalling and track components, rolling stock and customer information. Cost drivers such as infrastructure and energy components, e.g. trackside train detection (axle counters, etc.) and level crossing control systems, will be replaced by less costly wireless and energy-autonomous components. In addition, a modular and standardised vehicle concept specifically tailored to the requirements of regional lines becomes needed, as well as a range of attractive services.

Europe's fragmented transport system, characterised by a diverse range of national regulations, necessitates innovative solutions. This densely populated, polycentric landscape presents a unique opportunity to address congestion, decarbonise transport, and connect regions. Recognising the transformative potential of hyperloop technology, Hyper4Rail aims to shape future mobility by converging European efforts towards a standardised hyperloop system. Led by the Hyperloop Development Program (HDP), Hyper4Rail brings together key European players – major hyperloop developers and Rail Europe members – to establish a common European hyperloop design concept at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 2. This will be followed by demonstrating core subsystems at TRL 4 and defining pathways for industrialization and commercialisation, underpinned by a business case that identifies potentially viable use cases. Aligning with the EU's industrial strategy, Hyper4Rail fosters a technology-agnostic approach, leadership in standard setting, and the development of resilient passenger transport and supply chains. Hyper4Rail pursues a two-pronged approach: (1) technical harmonisation, industrialisation roadmaps, and applicability studies at TRL 2; and (2) design concept and validation of key subsystems at TRL 4. This directly addresses the goals of the Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking's Multiannual Work Programme (MAWP), particularly Flagship Area 7: "Innovation on new approaches for guided transport modes". As stated in the MAWP, this area seeks to explore "non-traditional and emerging flexible and/or high-speed guided transport systems," including "new types of railway-based transport, such as ultra-high-speed trains". Hyperloop technology aligns strongly with this vision, aiming to provide a socioeconomically efficient and long-term sustainable transport solution for citizens and businesses across Europe.