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.

SILVARSTAR brings together a unique consortium of six leading industrial and academic partners who contribute excellence in noise and vibration modelling (ISVR, KU Leuven), engineering consulting (Vibratec, Wölfel), software development for environmental impact studies (Wölfel) and for auralisation and visualisation (EMPA), as well as dissemination of collaborative project results to the European rail manufacturing industry (UNIFE). The overall goal of SILVARSTAR is to provide the railway community with proven software tools and methodologies to assess the noise and vibration environmental impact of railway traffic on a system level. The first overall objective of SILVARSTAR is to provide the railway community with a commonly accepted, practical and validated methodology and a user-friendly prediction tool for ground vibration impact studies. This tool will be used for environmental impact assessment of new or upgraded railways on a system level. It will provide access to ground vibration predictions to a wider range of suitably qualified engineers and will facilitate project planning and implementation by improved simulation processes. The second overall objective of SILVARSTAR is to develop a fully functional system for auralisation and visualisation based on physically correct synthesised (exterior and interior) railway noise, providing interfaces with Virtual Reality visualisation software. This system will facilitate communication with the public, decision makers and designers through virtual experience before delivery of projects.

IN2ZONE will design and test a prototype next generation transition zone solution that provides a step-change in track support conditions, resulting in a reduction in maintenance interventions. The new solution will combine the newest existing transition solutions with technological advances from other sectors, including recent advances in material science. This interdisciplinary approach will improve both the track super-structure and sub-structure designs, thus ensuring the whole system stiffness is optimised. To increase lifespan, advanced automatic irregularity correcting sleepers will be designed, that are synthetic and optimised for transition zones. This will enable the transition zone solution to self-correct minor vertical track geometry irregularities/faults. Further, the solution architecture will be modular to ensure the benefits are realised in minimal time. The new design will be optimised using the latest advances in discrete and finite element numerical simulation tools, coupled with computational fluid dynamics. The concept will then be constructed and tested at large-scale in an accelerated track testing laboratory facility. This gives a rare and valuable opportunity to develop and test the transition zone solution installation, maintenance and decommissioning, while also assessing long-term settlement behaviour. In addition to the new design, an advanced resilience-based monitoring specification for transition zones will be developed, which will fuse data from multiple track, vehicle and satellite sensors, using edge computing and artificial intelligence to achieve an Industry 4.0 approach for just-in-time maintenance. IN2ZONE’s pan-European consortium comprises 7 stakeholders covering all areas of expertise necessary to execute the project, including three companies, two research Universities, one Infrastructure Manager and one Rail Association.

The ASTRail project falls within the scope of the topic S2R-OC-IP2-01-2017 – Operational conditions of the signalling and automation systems; signalling system hazard analysis and GNSS SIS characterization along with Formal Method application in railway field, which is connected with the complementary topics S2R-CFM-IP2-01-2015 and S2R-CFM-IP2-01-2017. The ASTRail project will act to enhance the signalling and automation system by searching innovative solutions that exploit cutting edge technologies already present in sectors different from the rail such as the avionics or the automotive sector. Investigation of such technologies and assessment of their reusability in the railway field will be done taking in particular care all issues related to safety and performance in the rail system. Some ASTRail Partners have already participated in S2R projects, while others have been specifically involved to cope with some vertical tasks. From a different point of view, the Consortium is well balanced with both research organizations and industrial stakeholders of the rail domain.

The Shift2Rail Multi Annual Action Plan (MAAP) will play a central role in the establishment of future interoperable railway systems suitable for European society and environment. However, it is necessary to be aware of the novel possibilities that can enable an increasingly sustainable progress in this regard. TER4RAIL will identify and monitor new opportunities for innovative research and facilitate the cross-fertilisation of knowledge from other disciplines, at what is referred to as the Rail Innovative Research Observatory. Permanent contact with other relevant sectors will have a prominent role in importing disruptive perspectives from other disciplines and facilitating interactions. TER4RAIL will determine and assess the existing roadmaps that drive the future of railways and compare them with the interpretations obtained from the observatory. This analysis will indicate the gaps that require to be covered and serve as the anchor for the prospective roadmaps. TER4RAIL considers railways as the backbone of future European mobility, as stated in the rail sector’s European Railway Research Advisory Council’s (ERRAC) Rail 2050 Vision published in December 2017, and therefore, it is necessary that TER4RAIL raise arguments that can sustain this essential system. To that end, data analysis and statistical reporting are foreseen and conducted. Finally, the work performed under TER4RAIL will be communicated to the transport community, liaising with the Shift2Rail communication team with a correlated communication strategy. A strategy of exploitation of the results will guarantee that these are properly employed in this area with maximum impact. TER4RAIL will be able to select and synthetize a considerable amount of information regarding railways’ futures and transmit them in a consolidated, improved, clear, and understandable manner. This should facilitate the realisation of TER4RAIL’s ambition of being the CSA of reference for the evolution of EU railways.