INTELLIGENT & INTEGRATED ASSET MANAGEMENT

The Flagship Project stemming from this topic shall develop under the following capabilities the enablers and any other which may contribute to deliver the aforementioned expected outcome with the associated maturity level foreseen (up to – depending of the Use Case):

Capability for Information sharing across the supply chain and TMS

Enabler 1: Scalable information platform to integrate and exchange information (e.g. asset health, maintenance planning, fleet operation, etc.) across the supply chain and TMS, requiring necessary management and sharing agreements between the involved actors at TRL7 in 2028, and amongst others:

• secure standardised interfaces, methods, and processes for different data exchange (e.g. inspection devices to Asset Management Platform, etc.) at TRL7 in 2028, and

Capability for Unmanned and non-invasive monitoring and inspections

Enabler 2: Improved (in terms of cost reduction and/or better accuracy) asset diagnostic and inspection systems, as well as advanced, context aware, unmanned automated monitoring and inspections solutions at TRL7 in 2028, and amongst others:

• AI and ML solutions for automated monitoring and inspections, and data fusion algorithms to combine information provided by different inspection techniques to better determine the health status of the assets at TRL7 in 2028;
• Development of context awareness techniques for unmanned interventions at TRL 7 in 2028;
• Development of synchronization algorithms for inspection data stamping in terms of accurate position and time at TRL7 in 2028;

Capability for Advanced and holistic asset decisions

Enabler4: New methodologies and technologies to leverage advanced and holistic asset decisions during the span of their life cycle at TRL7/8 in 2028, based on:

• probabilistic models for component failure to integrate cost of potential hazard risks and cost of potential unavailability in the asset maintenance decision strategy, at TRL7 in 2028
• Harmonisation of railway asset LCC determination, at TRL7 in 2028
• Operational and IoT data with additional rail system information and knowledge as well as technologies to enable cooperative diagnostic between assets at TRL8/9 in 2028
• AI-based hybrid Decision Support based on predictive and prescriptive data analytics and Machine Learning algorithms for anomaly detection and failure prediction with optimised human-AI interactions at TRL7 in 2028

Enabler 5: Digital Twins integrated with BIM, GIS tools, and Virtual and Augmented Reality to enable agile visualization for different stakeholders of asset health status (historical, current, and forecasted) in various use cases at TRL 7 in 2028.

Capability for Advanced and holistic design and certification of assets

Enabler 6: Advanced and holistic design and certification of assets, at TRL 6/8 in 2025, based on:

• New ethical-by-design materials and/or innovative materials and processes for additive manufacturing, with advanced LCC characteristics, at TRL 6 in 2028
• Advanced automated certification techniques (including virtual certification), at TRL7 in 2028
• Energy scavenging approaches for self-supporting monitoring solutions, at TRL 6 in 2028

Capability for Remotely controlled, unmanned and metadata-assisted interventions

Enabler 7: Development of remotely controlled, unmanned and metadata-assisted interventions in construction, maintenance, and renewal operations, based on:

• non-invasive or collaborative unmanned robotic actuators and wearables as well as advanced unmanned robotic vehicles with AI and ML algorithms for automated robotic interventions, at TRL7 in 2028.
• additive manufacturing techniques and validation standards for manufacturing and repairing assets at TRL 6/7 in 2028.

Developments on all those 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.

For Research & innovation and demonstrations activities (within the action) making use of data models related to the interoperability or safety of the rail system, those data models should be aligned with the ERA Ontology[[https://github.com/Interoperable-data/ERA-Ontology-3.1.0]]. This ontology defines the conceptual framework and the specific terms and relationships for the interoperability or safety of the rail system in the EU that shall be used or where relevant extended. This includes the reuse of the ERA ontology with its semantic artifacts (shacl rules, skos ..) and in cases where it is not sufficient, extensions should be proposed to maintain semantic consistency and interoperability across systems. Those extensions proposals should cover the processes to validate extension to the ERA Ontology with compliant datasets and related competency questions and linked SPARQL queries based on interoperability testbed validation tools (Interoperability Test Bed Guides — ITB Guides[[https://www.itb.ec.europa.eu/docs/guides/latest/overview/index.html]]). Corresponding documentation should also include any mappings or transformations considered in the Research & Innovation activities and any assumptions made.

Key Performance Indicators

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. Outcomes are to be delivered at a calendar annual basis by each year end

Collaboration work required with other FAs

The action to be funded under Destination 3 shall foresee a common activity/task related to the use case developments relevant to the actions to be funded under Destination 1, 2 and 5 (not limited to).

It is expected that the Flagship Project stemming from this topic will use the EU-RAIL System Pillar Cybersecurity specifications [[https://rail-research.europa.eu/horizontal-tasks/]], provide feedback to the Destination 1 Workstream 2 covering Cybersecurity and foresee adequate structure and resources for these activities.

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. The interaction with the System Pillar activities on the Harmonised Diagnostics should receive particular attention.

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.

The EU-RAIL System Pillar is producing specifications and other relevant documents [[https://rail-research.europa.eu/v1-release/]]. In general the documents applicable to the Destination 3 should be used. If it is considered documents are not applicable, the proposals shall explain the reason(s) for not using them (to note the application of the documents may still be required by EU-RAIL). During the action to be funded under this Destination, there may be updating of the documents, including based on feedback from application in technical enablers and demonstrators. Relevant feedback should be provided on a regular basis to EU-RAIL and the System Pillar.

The action shall actively contribute to the update of the EU-Rail Standardisation and TSIs input plan (STIP) 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.

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.

Other

It is expected that the Flagship Project stemming from this topic:

• will involve sufficient European geographical representation of academia, and ensure that all needed expertise for the described activities reflects the Special skills and/or capabilities expected from the Applicant(s) as described in the specific topic conditions.
• will be compliant with the EU Data Policy 2020 and associated legal instruments. This requires adherence to EU framework, including but not limited to the Open Data Directive (EU) 2019/1024 and associated implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 on high-value data sets, the Data Governance Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/868), the Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854), and the Interoperable Europe Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/903). Ensuring compliance involves verifying that data management, processing and sharing comply with applicable EU framework.