The Rastatt incident in 2017 has highlighted the problems posed by foreign languages in the rail sector. It also highlighted the need to find alternative methods that are more modern, flexible and precise to allow the operations of international trains crossing several countries where different languages are spoken. The concept of the Translate4Rail project is to offer drivers a fully comprehensive set of predefined standardised messages which encompass all they have to exchange with an infrastructure manager traffic controller in normal or exceptional operational situations in a country where they do not understand nor speak the local language. An IT tool will then be implemented to enable the driver and the traffic controller to understand each other even though each of them speak in his/her native language. This will capitalise on the works already committed on this matter between Infrastructure Managers (IMs) and Railway Undertakings (RUs) at RNE and UIC level. These works have dealt with the analysis of the various types of operational situations needing exchanges between RUs drivers and IMs signallers. The project will enable to test these works and to further harmonise and standardise pre-defined messages in the light of the tests carried out. Such messages will be uttered by the driver or the traffic controller. They will then be identified, translated and uttered in the language of the other party by the given tool. The project will define the functional characteristics of the tool which will create a frame for the exchanges between drivers and traffic controllers. This tool will use voice recognition and translation applications. The tool will be tested on pilot trains running on cross border sections of rail freight corridors where drivers have to use different languages. The project intends to at least maintain the level of safety, increase the traffic fluidity at borders and to increase the competitiveness of the rail sector.

The challenge for the railway sector regarding energy is to increase the capacity while improving the energy consumption and limiting the environmental impacts, and to decrease the investment and exploitation costs, while maintaining safety and service quality. It makes it necessary to rethink railway power supply under future requests, reflecting the status of different systems. The project FUNDRES presents a deep thinking and related work to define the future of railway, based on new unified Future UNified Dc Railway Electrification System based on 9 kvDC, able to integrate the existing lines during transition period. In the coming years, MVDC power grids will contribute to the deployment of renewable energies and the electrification of transport systems. Compared to classical AC electricity distribution networks, they are generally more energy efficient and facilitate the interconnection of sources, storage elements and loads. In 2018, a new 9 kV DC railway electrification system is presented as an opportunity for railway sector. The ambitions of FUNDRES are to bring substantial improvements in the energy technology area and station for the future unified system based on 9 kVDC. The consortium composed by LAPLACE, EPFL, POLIMI and UIC will develop several scenarios, validated by experimental demonstration at the laboratory level (TRL4). The digital twin offers the possibility to predict the behaviour and the impacts of the proposed unified electrical system based on 9kvDC. The project outputs will be used to deliver new integrated technology demonstrators and scientific progress for the project IN2STEMPO, and more largely for Shift2Rail, which will be implemented in the railway network.

The vision of MultiModX is that of a multimodal European transport system in which air and rail networks are planned and managed in a coordinated manner to maximise the efficiency, predictability, environmental sustainability and resilience of the door-to-door passenger journey. The goal of MultiModX is to develop a set of innovative multimodal solutions and decision support tools for the coordinated planning and management of multimodal transport networks. MultiModX develops a multimodal modelling and evaluation framework, including a set of key performance areas and indicators, that enable a comprehensive characterisation of the impact of multimodal transport sytems and multimodal solutions for a range of stakeholders. It will improve existing indicators and metrics and complements current frameworks by more meaningful passenger-centric metrics for better measures of significant disruption (e.g., longer delays, missed connections, denied boarding, cancellations). This MultiModX Performance Assessment Solution will support the design, implementation and evaluation of these (and other) multimodal solutions by enabling ex-ante assessment and ex-post monitoring of their impact on a comprehensive set of KPIs. A Schedule Design Solution will enable the coordinated design of air and rail schedules according to expected demand behaviour. The Disruption Management Solution will support decision-makers response to disruptive events in real time in order to minimise the impact on the passengers, profiting from the extension of the A-CDM concept to other transport modes. In order to nurture the conditions for the transfer of the MultiModX Solutions to the subsequent stages of the R&I cycle stakeholders are engaged throughout the full project lifecycle for validation and discussion purposes, as well as disseminating the project outcomes to potential adopters and ensuring that the components developed contain a clear definition of integration and datasets requirements.

The project DACcord provides with management competencies employed already in the precursor project DACcelerate to support to the EU-Rail JU for the continuation of the professional management of the activities of the European DAC Delivery Programme (EDDP), enabled by the EU-Rail JU and established in the EU-Rail JU work programme, in which European Rail Freight Sector and manufacturers are united to strive for the Europe-wide introduction of a Digital Automatic Coupler. DACcord describes in detail the required migration planning activities, leading to an industrial migration roadmap, as the EDDP focuses on the preparation of DAC migration & deployment from 2023 onwards. For doing this, the project will work closely with EDDP members and stakeholders to set up the overall task list in the actions defined by the EDDP. As alignment on the DAC/EDDP objectives throughout Europe is key to achieve consensus on objectives and specially to unlock the necessary funding for such a sector-wide transformation. DACcord establishes a mechanism for collecting and reporting the positions in the European stakeholder landscape to support the EU-Rail JU in providing recommended measures to the EDDP stakeholder management team..Professional communication material/tools and targeted dissemination activities will back the efforts. (Any of the described activities involving stakeholder management and dissemination actions will be coordinated and submitted for validation to the EU-Rail JU). To make DAC implementation economically possible, the project will further provide a draft concept on requirements for the DAC deployment funding mechanisms and potential options to fulfil them, to prepare the way for DAC deployment management entities in Europe. To align the different activities shaping the architectural and procedural DAC-related European Railway System (project TRANS4RM-R in the EU-Rail JU Flagship Area 5, the EU-Rail JU System Pillar (task 4) and EDDP), DACcord will support the EU-Rail JU in the cross-coordination and interfacing of the three entities and in the management and administration of its different decision-making bodies.