Since 2008, the rail freight market has not yet recovered from the global recession and profit margins in the railway sector have been falling throughout Europe. Moreover, competition was able to increase their capacity due to innovations. Within the last 15 years, inland vessels have increased their transport capacity by 158%, truck transportation by up to 50% while rail freight transportation only by 3% thanks to increasing the length of trains to 740 metres. SHIFT²RAIL IP5 addresses this issue by fostering a vision for future rail freight operation offering increased quality and efficiency while simultaneously improving the overall cost structure. The target is to shift the road freight volumes for distances beyond 300 km to other modes in the range of 30% and 50% by the years 2030 and 2050 respectively. In this context, the FFL4E project (Future Freight Locomotive for Europe) aims at developing key technologies for future energy efficient freight locomotives, allowing highest operational flexibility and providing attractive and competitive rail freight services to the final customer. Focus is set on: • Extreme flexibility for operation in non-electrified and in electrified lines, allowing private and public operators to offer broaden rail freight services according to demand without the need of changing the locomotive. • Remote control for distributed power, thus, allowing the increase of the train length up to 1500 m and consequently improving the cost efficiency of rail transport. • Recuperation of braking energy as much as possible, store it onboard and reuse it whenever required, for traction purposes, for peak shaving or to supply auxiliaries and others. • Last mile propulsion capabilities, sourcing the energy from a powerful on-board Li-Ion battery • Reduction of wear and noise of freight operations by means of developing track-friendly, low-noise running gear for the future freight locomotive.

CONNECTA aims at contributing to the S2R’s next generation of TCMS architectures and components with wireless capabilities as well as to the next generation of electronic braking systems. CONNECTA will conduct research into new technological concepts, standard specifications and architectures for train control and monitoring, with specific applications in train-to-ground communications and high safety electronic control of brakes. The specific actions to be undertaken within the scope of CONNECTA contributing to the S2R Multi-Annual Action Plan on TD1.2 and TD1.5 are: · To develop the general specifications of next generation TCMS and to generate the corresponding high level system architecture; · To incorporate wireless technologies to train communication network solutions; · To provide a train-wide communication network for full TCMS support including the replacement of train lines, connecting safety functions up to SIL4 and support of “fail-safe” and “fail-tolerant” principles, to provide an optimal train network for TCMS & OMTS (Onboard Multimedia and Telematic Services) as well as communication mean for non-TCMS functions; · To standardise functional interfaces of functions and sub systems as well as to define a generic functional architecture for the next TCMS generation; · To facilitate the coupling of two or more consists supplied by different manufacturers and which could have different train functions; · To develop a simulation framework in which all subsystems of the train can be simulated, allowing remote and distributed testing including hardware in-the-loop through heterogeneous communication networks; · To achieve a performance improvement in safety relevant braking functions resulting in optimisation of the braking distances in safety braking; · To optimise onboard systems by reducing the number of sophisticated pneumatic components and improving the overall LCC; · To validate non-railway EN standards for use in safety-related railway applications.

Continuation project of CONNECTA-2 (GA 826098) which targets the high TRL deployment and validation in two relevant laboratory demonstrators and field tests for urban and regional scenarios of the following technologies: - Wireless TCMS, including wireless train backbone, wireless consist network and standardized train-to-ground according to IEC 61375-2-6. - NG-TCN including high safe (SIL4) communication networks to support the drive-by-data concept, including brake-by-wire. - Functional Open Coupling (FOC) - Functional Distribution Framework (FDF) instantiated with two different approaches (modified AUTOSAR and selfimplemented on top of specific operating system), together with relevant application profiles. - The virtual certification simulatiom framework, with hardware-in-the-loop and remote connectivity to subsystems The goal is to reach TRL6/7 in most developments.

The PINTA Project (IP1 Traction TD1 and Brakes TD5 – Phase 1) will address the two key topics highlighted in the first Shift2Rail Call topic S2R-CFM-IP1-01-2016 – Development of concepts towards the next generation of traction systems and management of wheel/rail adhesion, namely Traction and Adhesion Management. Traction subproject will focus on the improvement of seven technical and economical performances of the Traction system that have been agreed and defined in Roll2Rail. These performances have to be improved on five different train applications having different constraints, needs and specificities, from tramway to HST, including metro, sub-urban, regional trains. In particular, Traction sub-project will address the following: 1) Line capacity increase through weight, volume and noise savings of Traction equipment. 2) Operational reliability increase via higher reliability/availability. 3) Railway system LCC reduction As far as Adhesion management is concerned, the work will lead to the achievement of a number of important objectives linked to Brakes, such as · Improvement of braking degradation limit in poor adhesion condition · Management of all adhesion conditions in a way that brake distances are optimized · Improvement of the overall train safety, which relies substantially on the management of the wheel/rail contact · Reduction of wheel Life-Cycle-Costs (LCCs) through optimized wheel/rail contact in braking The activities should contribute in formulating new performance specifications for Adhesion Recovery Systems. Moreover, improved requirements for Wheel Slide Protection test procedures should be developed, followed by new specifications for Automatic Test benches.

The PINTA2 Project (IP1 Traction TD1 and Brakes TD5 – Phase 2) will address the two key topics highlighted in the Shift2Rail Call topic S2R-CFM-IP1-01-2018 – Development of concepts towards the next generation of traction systems and management of wheel/rail adhesion, namely Traction and Adhesion Management. PINTA2 will continue, fully in line with PINTA Phase1, to work on Traction & Adhesion improvements of seven technical and economical KPIs of the Traction system that have been agreed and defined in PINTA (fully in line with S2R KPIs). These performances will be improved on five different train applications having different constraints, needs and specificities, from tramway to HST, including metro, sub-urban, regional trains. In particular, Traction sub-project will address the following KPIs: 1) Line capacity increase through weight, volume and noise savings of Traction equipment. 2) Reduction of Maintenance costs via higher reliability/availability and optimized for maintenance Traction components. 3) Railway system LCC reduction via higher energy efficiency and optimized capital cost of the Traction systems. On Brakes Adhesion side, the work will lead to the achievement of a number of important objectives such as · higherTRL levels of improvement of braking degradation limit in poor adhesion condition · Management of all adhesion conditions in a way that brake distances are optimized · Improvement of the overall train safety, which relies substantially on the management of the wheel/rail contact · Reduction of wheel Life-Cycle-Costs (LCCs) through optimized wheel/rail contact in braking The activities will contribute in developing new performance solutions for Adhesion. The work done in PINTA2 will consist in higher achievement ( up to TRL6) to prepare the final Phase3 work and future TRL7 demonstration on trains, at least Metro, Regional and HST expected around 2021-22.