Objective
A sustainable and efficient freight transport in Europe plays a vital role in having a successful and competitive economy. Freight transport is expected to grow by some 50 % (in tonne-kilometres) by 2020. However rail has, in many areas, been displaced from a dominant position as road transport services have grown and developed in capability and levels of sophistication that have not been matched by rail service providers.
SUSTRAIL aims to contribute to the rail freight system to allow it to regain position and market and the proposed solution is based on a combined improvement in both freight vehicle and track components in a holistic approach aimed at achieving a higher reliability and increased performance of the rail freight system as a whole and profitability for all the stakeholders. The SUSTRAIL integrated approach is based on innovations in rolling stock and freight vehicles (with a targeted increased in speed and axle-load) combined with innovations in the track components (for higher reliability and reduced maintenance), whose benefits to freight and passenger users (since mixed routes are considered) are quantified through the development of an appropriate business case with estimation of cost savings on a life cycle basis. In fact, a holistic approach to vehicle and track sustainability has to be taken, since improvements in track design and materials alone are not enough as demands on the rail system increase.
Contributions from the different topic areas (vehicles, track, operations) will be demonstrated on real routes, offering geographic dispersion as well as differences in type, speed, and frequency of traffic.
A strong multidisciplinary consortium committed to concrete actions aligned toward a common outcome has been grouped for the achievement of the challenging objectives of the project with a balanced combination of Infrastructure managers, freight operators and Industry, including Large and Small enterprises, with support from Academia.
Field of science
- /social sciences/social and economic geography/transport/freight transport
Call for proposal
FP7-SST-2010-RTD-1
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CP-IP - Large-scale integrating projectCoordinator
75026 Rotondella
Italy
Participants (30)
NW1 2DN London
1233 Sofia
28036 Madrid
1080 Sofia
25128 Brescia
70043 Monopoli
20135 Milano
1445 Heer
010719 Bucuresti
SE97238 Lulea
SW1P 4WY London
3005 Bern
1574 Sofia
NE1 7RU Newcastle Upon Tyne
971 87 Lulea
Participation ended
M15 6BH Manchester
10623 Berlin
LS2 9JT Leeds
S10 2TN Sheffield
28040 Madrid
100 44 Stockholm
20133 Milano
190031 Saint Petersburg
0175 Tbilisi
75015 Paris
1050 Bruxelles
515200 Aiud
30890 Barsinghausen
1080 Sofia
HD1 3DH Huddersfield