A sustainable and green rail system

The Flagship Project stemming from this topic should develop the following capabilities:

Alternative energy solutions for the rolling stock

Development, validation and demonstration of traction system components, including related innovative and standardised functions, to improve technical, environmental, circular economy and LCC KPIs. To demonstrate the feasibility of the results of the innovation, the technical enabler will be applied in static test bench and real demonstrators of:

• • Enabler 1: Trains with on-board Energy Storage Systems. High performance and high efficient Batteries Electric Multi-Unit (BEMU) trains with long autonomy (80km baseline and over 200 km targeted) and sub-urban catenary trains with high level of braking energy recovery and energy autonomy (TRL 6/7 to be achieved in 2026)
• Enabler 2: Hydrogen hybrid trains: infrastructure inspection/maintenance heavy duty vehicle and loco for freight-passengers at TRL 5/6 (powered with gas H2 or liquid H2)

Holistic approach to energy management in the railway system

The increased use of renewable energy sources (RES), energy storage devices and the smart energy management will improve the global mobility decarbonization and the energy efficiency of the railway system. Within this Destination, this approach will be done through:

• Enabler 3: The application of solutions for the production, storage and refuelling of hydrogen for railway vehicles on the example of a prototype refuelling station. Development of a standard refuelling interface using algorithms to ensure optimum time and safety of the process as well as provide scalability and future growth of the refuelling station depending on the demand for hydrogen with TRL6 targeted in 2025.
• Enabler 4: Integration of various sources in different systems (e.g. 25kV AC, 1,5/3kV DC), of renewable energy, energy harvesting technologies, superconducting, breaking energy recovery, etc, as well as the integration of energy storage with TRL6 targeted in 2025.
• Enabler 5: Solutions for the optimal energy management in the whole power system, covering traction and non-traction demand including stations as energy hubs and integrated in a smart grid under the market rules and targeting at TRL5 in 2025.

Sustainability and resilience of the rail system to deliver added value on asset management

This Destination aims to provide solutions to foster environmental advantages of rail, reduce nuisances and addressing resilience on the whole life cycle through:

• Enabler 6: Adaptation to climate change with the development of a tool on European climate variables usable for railway assets, considering risk assessment reports and the benchmark of existing solutions to accelerate the lowering of environmental footprint targeting TRL5 in 2025 to implement adaptation strategies.
• Enabler 7: Development of noise indicators, simulation tools and development of optimised components and optimised maintenance regimes for noise and vibrations, aiming at TRL6 in 2025, taking also into account different climate conditions in the EU.
• Enabler 8: Methodologies and guidelines for the optimal design/rehabilitation of station layout including modularity oriented towards carbon footprint reduction to be validated at TRL5/6 in 2025.
• Enabler 9: Development of tools and indicators to promote eco-design, assess environmental performance improvements and ensure standardized reporting of the environmental impacts of the rail sector at TRL5 in 2025.

Improvement of electro-mechanical components and sub-systems for the rolling stock

The technological solutions for the migration to the airless train will require high performance bogies, gearboxes, suspensions, and materials. This destination will achieve those improvements by:

• Enabler 10: Developing and introduce to the market electro-mechanical braking system, pantograph and suspensions while targeting energy savings on the involved subsystems and reduce associated maintenance costs by reaching TRL6 for 2025 and prepare for later evolutions.
• Enabler 11: Introducing optimised motors and gearboxes, high performance bogies, suspensions and new materials following circular economy principles and reaching TRL6 in 2025.
• Enabler 12: Delivering alternative technologies to replace hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants by HVAC system using green refrigerants or new cooling technologies with reduced energy consumption and targeting TRL6 in 2025.
• Enabler 13: Introducing enhanced experimental and numerical methods at TRL6 on aerodynamic certifications by 2025.

Healthier and safer rail system

The demonstration of novel systems and technologies to include enhancing the air quality by air purification and air distribution while addressing the thermal comfort and air quality (virus, bacteria, volatile organic compounds and fine particles) to guarantee a platform independent approach by:

• Enabler 14: Specific sub-demonstrators to be set-up, each of them contributing to the overall goal of the demonstration of a healthier environment in the rail vehicle, for both new designs of future trains and refurbishment of existing trains and targeting TRL7 in 2025.

Attractiveness

This destination is expected to develop rolling stock interiors designed by modularity, plug and play fixation systems by innovative low-tech, circular design and comfort aspects, as well as to develop new architectures for driver’s cabin to reach TRL5-6 in 2025. Within this Destination, the demonstrations will be supported on:

• Enabler 156: The facilitation of on-demand comfort for users such as access, lighting, thermal and acoustic conditions as well as with new architectures to increase passenger capacity and target TRL5-6 in 2025.
• Enabler 16: The facilitation to adapt rolling stock with refurbishment and innovative concepts to support the increase of capacity of the rolling stock targeting TRL5-6 in 2025 and prepare for later evolutions.

Developments on all those 16 enablers should also cover important preparatory works with higher TRL for the future set of demonstration foreseen in the Multi- annual Work programme in view of the evolutions of the solutions.

The action shall actively contribute to measure and monitor the specific quantitative KPIs defined in the Destination description above, including its contribution to the Europe’s Rail Master Plan impacts.

The action shall actively contribute to the EU-Rail standardisation rolling development plans wherever relevant. Similarly, the action shall contribute to the development and implementation of EU policy and legislation including Technical Specifications for Interoperability and Common Safety Methods, as well as to publications of the System Pillar.

Collaboration work required with other FAs

The action to be funded under Destination 4 shall foresee a common activity/task related to capturing specific requirements and review of system specifications relevant to the actions to be funded under Destination 1 and Destination 6.

Interaction with the System Pillar

The System Pillar aims to guide, support and secure the work of the Innovation Pillar (i.e. to ensure that research is targeted on commonly agreed and shared customer requirements and operational needs, compatible and aligned to the system architecture), and the Innovation Pillar will impact the scope of the System Pillar where new technologies or processes mean that innovations can drive a change in approach, as well as delivering detailed specifications and requirements.

In this respect, the necessary resources would have to be dedicated to areas linked to System Pillar conceptual and architecture works – particularly addressing specification development (the interaction is illustrated in the System Pillar – Innovation Pillar interaction note (Annex VI of this Work Programme). The alignment of the activities will primarily take place during the Grant Preparation Phase and ramp up phase of the awarded proposal, and there will be continued interaction through the life of the project.

Gender dimension

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.