Europe’s Rail Flagship Project 6 - Delivering Innovative rail services to revitalise capillary lines and Regional rail services

Project Information

FP6 - FutuRe

Grant agreement ID: 101101962

DOI

10.3030/101101962

EC signature date 8 December 2022

Start date 1 December 2022

End date 30 November 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 15 450 251,32

Coordinated by

FAIVELEY TRANSPORT SAS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FP6 - FutuRe (Europe’s Rail Flagship Project 6 - Delivering Innovative rail services to revitalise capillary lines and Regional rail services)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Regional railway (lines with lower usage or secondary network) plays a crucial role not only in serving European regions, but also as feeders for passenger and freight traffic for the main/core network. Therefore, they have an essential function as an environmentally friendly mode of transport. In addition is as well essential their link to other public transport services (e.g. bus) and to first and last mile services, such as bike-sharing, cycling, walking or driving to get from/to stations to remote locations.
Unfortunately, many of these routes were abandoned in the past - mainly due to high costs.
Therefore, these rail lines need to be revitalized or even renewed to make them economically, socially and environmentally sustainable and to meet current customer needs and challenges The overall objectives of the FutuRe project are to ensure the long-term viability of the regional railway by reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO), while ensuring high service quality and operational reliability. It also aims to increase customer satisfaction and to make rail an attractive and preferred mode of transport.
Therefore, the main objectives of FutuRe are: lowering CAPEX system costs, increasing productivity by lowering OPEX (unit costs per train kilometer), and improving customer satisfaction. These goals are to be achieved through a concept tailored to regional railways but transferable across Europe, encompassing digitalisation, automation and the use of common and new technologies for signaling and track components, rolling stock and customer information. Cost drivers such as infrastructure and energy components, e.g. trackside train detection (axle counters, etc.) and level crossing control systems, will be replaced by less costly wireless and energy autonomous components. In addition, a modular and standardised vehicle concept specifically tailored to the requirements of regional lines becomes needed, as well as a range of attractive services.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the 1st reporting period the project focalised activities on the regional rail requirements specification, in compliance to the methodology and the phasing criteria defined in the DoA. Collection of architecture requirements from the technical WPs, namely WP3, 4, 5 and 6, allowed to:
- provide first input to the System Pillar.
- provide first input to the Innovation Pillars (specifically Destination 1, Destination 2, Destination and 4).
- contribute to set-up KPIs modelling and related reference baseline.
- contribute to define the basis for input to STIP.
Through the activities performed under the WP2 framework that ensured coordination, harmonisation and consolidation of the results.
Coherently to MAWP Flagship Area 6 objectives, the developed technical content addressed the Regional System Solutions (WP2) that integrated the specificities for CCS and related Operations (WP3, with contribution through WP2 of WP5 for G2 Lines), Regional Railway Asset (WP4), Rolling Stock (WP5) and Customer Services (WP6) showing that the proposed concepts goes toward the lowering of total cost, the increasing of the railway system productivity and the improvement of customer satisfaction.
The execution of such synergic activities between the WP2 and the other work packages paved the way to make these latter developing more specific requirements during the next reporting period, as basis for the related project deliverables. That is also functional to the consolidation and widening of the interaction with the System Pillar and the other Innovation Pillars (Destination 1, 2 ,4).
During the second part of the 1st reporting period, the project started the development of a methodology to manage the intended project KPI as per related DoA.

During the 2nd reporting period the project focalised activities on the regional rail use cases and requirements specification, in compliance to the methodology and the phasing criteria defined in the DoA and with the developments done during the 1st year particularly in the WP2 framework. Collection of requirements and use cases from the technical WPs, namely WP3, 4, 5 and 6, allowed to:
• Provide input to the System Pillar.
• Provide input to the Innovation Pillars (specifically Destination 1, Destination 2, Destination and 4).
• Contribute to set-up KPIs modelling and related reference baseline, with release of first related deliverable D2.3.
• Contribute with input to STIP.
through the activities performed under the WP2 framework that ensured coordination, harmonisation and consolidation of the results.
All the WPs addressing technical developments in the several research areas timely submitted the planned deliverables during the 2nd reporting period (all deliverables in plan to WP3, 4, 5, 6).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

To make the impact by FP6 project results tangible and effective in the future, a methodology for their exploitation has been developed addressing:
- Assessment at high-level the target market sectors and the potential beneficiaries of the results that can be effectively exploited.
- Define the Key Exploitable Results of the FP6 - FutuRe project, characterising the associated value proposition.
- Identify the routes to be followed for an effective exploitation.
- Establish how to manage the associated IPR.
- Consolidate the understanding of the project on the Technology Readiness Level of the intended results.
- Asses the associated risks, define the mitigation actions and the related follow-up.
- Propose an overview on the opportunities offered by the trends of future railways market.

During the 2nd reporting period the preparatory work for the defintion of the final exploitation strategy and related business plan started.
As of today, the activity is ongoing and the above exploitation methodology is serving as driver.
The finalisation of requirements and use cases scopes in all the research topics part of FP6 action allowed consolidation of demonstrators concept.
The demonstration assets have been identified as key pillar for the definition of an effective strategy for project results exploitation.