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Measuring, monitoring and data handling for railway assets; bridges, tunnels, tracks and safety systems

Project description

Innovative technology to keep rail on track

Europe’s ageing railway system infrastructure is being tested by increasing traffic. Reliable rolling stock is needed to materialise the desired modal change to rail. This requires implementing a proactive and cost-effective maintenance and intervention system in the assets. In this context, the EU-funded Assets4Rail project will explore, adapt and test pioneering technologies for railway asset monitoring and maintenance. The project focuses on infrastructures, such as tunnels, bridges and safety systems, and on vehicles. A dedicated information model with integrated algorithms will be used to collect and evaluate information delivered by specific sensors that monitor the infrastructures, and the use of radio frequency identification technology will increase train monitoring.

Objective

Assets4Rail shares the Shift2Rail view of having an ageing European railway infrastructure that needs to cope with the expected increased traffics in the future. Likewise, reliable rolling stock will be required to crystallize the desired modal shift to rail. Both goals relay on a proactive and cost-effective maintenance and intervention system in the assets.
Assets4Rail aims to contribute to this modal shift by exploring, adapting and testing cutting-edge technologies for railway asset monitoring and maintenance. To achieve that, Assets4Rail follows a twofold approach, including infrastructure (tunnel, bridges, track geometry, and safety systems) and vehicles.
A dedicated information model (BIM) will be the keystone of the infrastructure part of the project. This model with integrated algorithms will gather and analyze the information collected by specific sensors which will monitor subsurface tunnel defects, fatigue consumption, noise and vibrations of bridges as well as track geometry. On the other hand, train monitoring will include the installation of track-side and underframe imaging automated system to collect data for detecting specific types of defects that have non-negligible impacts on infrastructure. The additional use of the RFID technology will enable the smooth identification of trains and single elements, associated with the identified rolling stock failures.
The combination of mentioned real-time collected data with existing data along the implementation of deep learning techniques for assessing large data volumes will pave the way towards a cost-effective and proactive maintenance process of infrastructure and rolling stock. In addition, two innovative intervention methods, noise rail dampers and the cleaning of long tunnel drainage pipes, will be validated on field.
Assets4Rail will benefit from a strong multidisciplinary consortium committed to concrete exploitation activities aligned towards the achievement of the challenging project objectives.

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IA - Innovation action

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-S2RJU-2018

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Coordinator

FUNDACIO EURECAT
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 383 937,49
Address
AVENIDA UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA 23
08290 Cerdanyola Del Valles (Barcelona)
Spain

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Region
Este Cataluña Barcelona
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 383 937,49

Participants (23)

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