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Improving railway services for users and operators - S2R-CFM-CCA-01-2017
Deadline: Mar 30, 2017  
CALL EXPIRED

 Social Innovation
 Innovation & Research
 Transport
 Urban transport
 Horizon Europe
 Research

Specific Challenge: 

Socio-Economic Effects 

The potential of rail in contributing to European transport policy and wider societal objectives is substantial. However, today figures from the railway sector show that in most countries around Europe there is a low level of railway usage in general. A modal shift to rail for both passengers and freight is a major challenge in realising the potential of rail. How can rail/shift to rail be used as an active factor in societal building? Which are the key factors for a modal shift to rail and which are the obstacles? Which ones reside within the railway system and which ones relate to other parties? What factors are addressed by S2R targets and activities? Which other factors, activities of actors and sectors are needed for realising the full potential of rail for customers and society? 

System Platform Demonstrators (SPDs) and Integrated Assessment 

The challenge is to develop approaches and tools to enable the evaluation of the impacts of key technology developments within Shift2Rail. In particular, the objective of the Integrated Assessment (IA) of the System Platform Demonstrators (SPD) is to evaluate to which extent the results of the Shift2Rail Programme are reaching the expected key targets detailed in the Master Plan. The SPDs are the basis for the IA, the latter being expected to measure their specific effects on each Key Performance Indicator (KPI). The specific challenge is linked to the definition of the SPDs in order to identify the right scenarios of the future railway system(s) and model the inter-dependencies of the KPIs between each other as well as between low-level functional and technical parameters and high-level socio-economic objectives. The result will be a KPI model for the overall railway system, able to demonstrate the influences of all IPs and TDs on the Shift2Rail key targets. This model is to be validated by external data and finally used throughout the project runtime of the TDs in order to monitor the achievement of the key targets. 

Standardisation 

Standardisation is an efficient way to ensure the best and most rapid exploitation of the validated results of the research and innovation activities within Shift2Rail program. Although standardisation can sometimes be a lengthy and expensive process, the improvement of identified critical processes and enabling a fast and easy transfer of research results into both the European and world markets should be sought. New and innovative approaches need to be streamlined to facilitate and make more efficient the transformation of the research results into standards to cope with novel technologies never used before. 

Smart Maintenance 58 

 

The current maintenance system is characterised by a combination of scheduled pre-emptive maintenance (predictive maintenance with service activities at defined intervals and replacement/reconditioning of parts before they fail) and unscheduled maintenance (corrective maintenance with repair/replacement of failed parts ). The introduction of digitalisation presents significant opportunities for reducing maintenance costs, while also having a strong positive impact on reliability and availability. In the future many important railway subsystems and components will implement Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) , expecting a reduction of maintenance costs and increase of components reliability and availability. Research activities will be carried out for infrastructure components within the topic S2R-CFM-IP3-02-2016 and for freight trains within the topic S2R-OC-IP5-03-2015. This topic will address the challenge of integration of CBM developments for all subsystems and consider CBM for passenger trains investigated in the complementary topic S2R-OC-CCA-01-2017. 

Integrated Mobility Management 

Integrated mobility management shall be smart and based on a real-time seamless exchange of information between rail operation business services and achieve an increased level of standardisation of interfaces, processes and data structures on such a level to ensure interoperability between supplier´s subsystems and modules. 

Integrated processes shall provide intelligent, automated and flexible rail traffic operations, but also support an integrated approach to the optimization of railway architecture and operational systems at network, route and individual train service level. These will reconcile business and operational requirements (namely customer service, capacity, speed, timekeeping, energy, asset management) with real-time field and asset condition monitoring and intelligent traffic planning. Integrated Mobility Management requires expertise from IP2, IP3 and IP5. 

Human Capital 

The challenge is to bridge the gap between the changes in railway and other industrial sectors imposed by rapid technological advances such as automation and digitization and the substantial demographic change in the “Human Capital” of railways expected in the near future. 

The specific challenge is to be able to derive a concept on the management of these changes on the human capital side (e.g. change in job profiles, skills, organization and their relationships with safety, simplified/user designed devices and services) of the sociotechnical system “railway” imposed by the introduction of technical innovations. 

Scope: 

Proposals should address all the following work streams in line with the Shift2Rail MAAP: 

Socio-Economic Effects (WA1): 

All activities under this topic will be based on four use cases. These cases are based on the System Demonstrator Platforms (SPDs) and the activities will be performed in close connection to the SPDs and Integrated Assessment work. This work will be an input to the SPDs work and should achieve: 

− Societal building by transportation: based on the available deliverables of the actions funded under S2R-CFM-CCA-01-2015 and S2R-OC-CCA-01-2015, the scope of this action is to investigate how rail, within the transport system, can be used as a design tool for societal building, in ways that contribute to European transport policy and wider societal objectives. 

 

The Shift2Rail targets and results should be investigated from this societal building perspective. 

− Key success factors for a modal shift to rail: the scope of this action is to investigate what factors that are the most important for a modal shift to rail (passenger and freight) and to what extent S2R targets and activities include these factors and promote such shifts. Results should include a research map, which shows possible measures for urban, regional, long-distance and freight transport that will attract more customers. 

− S2R Society effects: based on the available deliverables of the actions funded under S2R-CFM-CCA-01-2015 and S2R-OC-CCA-01-2015, the scope of this action is to investigate obtained and potential societal effects of S2R results (towards the end of project duration) through a Socio-economic Impact Assessment Study. 

− Preparation and finalisation of guidelines to describe chances, risks, strategies to attract more customers (passenger + freight) targeted for Railway Undertakings, Infrastructure Managers Government and the industry. It will analyse trends, user requirements, obstacles, socio-economic-effects, technology evolution, mobility competition and needs from different user groups. 

 

System Demonstrators and Integrated Assessment (WA2) 

The scope of this work is to detail the baseline and SPD scenarios focusing on the integration of KPIs, based on available deliverables of the actions funded under S2R-CFM-CCA-01-2015 and the S2R-OC-CCA-01-2015. The following four activities should be performed, taking into account the work done already on KPI monitoring and socio-economics: 

− Today’s SPDs scenario: the SPDs will be specified from wider transport policy and societal objectives. The current transport market state of play should be described, so that it can be the baseline on which the Shift2Rail achievements could be measured. The continuous change of Railway operation modalities should also be addressed here. The model that will be developed should also be flexible enough to take into account changes e.g. market, technology or other changes from the overall mobility domain.. 

− SPDs within Shift2Rail: the work should assess and predict how the four SPD (high speed, regional, urban/suburban, freight) segments would look like once the Shift2Rail results are incorporated. The TDs objectives and expectations should be taken into account. In addition the work should also show how those SPDs segments would have looked like without Shift2Rail and its R&D results/innovations. A limited mid-term view should be developed. 

− Future SPDs: The identification and detailed description of the future SPDs will lead to detection of some shortcomings in the Shift2Rail planned activities. The work should draw conclusions on how these shortcomings should be handled. 

− Segmentation and interaction of the market segments in the KPI model contains the model structure which is segmented into several sub-models. Those are separately validated by using existing data as well as used to set up the different models for the SPD scenarios. The target is to re-use as much of the generic KPI-model for all SPD scenarios and have only specific adaptation per segments. The validity has to be shown for all SPD scenarios. 

 

Standardisation (WA3) 

 

The action should address the process of transformation of the S2R research results into standards and the way it can be speeded up with decreased costs. Innovative and accepted processes need to be investigated based on the participant experience and a state of the art analysis. 

This action should support the Shift2Rail JU in managing the standardisation activities related to: 

− Disseminating the S2R programme value in contributing to the EU and international standards with the results from the R&I activities 

− Definition of innovative more efficient and effective processes for standards developments from S2R R&I results 

 

The proposal should address the following elements: 

− prepare the strategic analysis of the Shift2Rail research activities in terms of standardisation potential 

− propose a standardisation deployment plan based on the analysis of the S2R R&I and provide a prioritisation process based on a state of the art analysis of the different ongoing and planned standardisation process at EU and international level 

− propose innovative standardisation processes and tools to speed up market uptake of the R&I results from the S2R activities 

− provide return on experience and background information on the normative process with the European standardisation bodies (CEN/CENELEC), the regulation body European Union Agency for Railways and other professional organisations that define international specifications in the railway domain in order for the JU to be able to develop guidelines. 

− help in developing a proper template to support TD leaders in harmonising how standards are written within the JU processes 

− develop a mapping and roadmap for closing TSI open points in coordination with the European Union Agency for Railways 

− monitor the European standardisation processes of the Shift2Rail activities to prevent overlaps 

 

Smart Maintenance (WA3) 

The activities of the proposed action should: 

− Define the scope of cooperation with sub-system Shift2Rail Smart Maintenance activities (within IP1, IP3 and IP5) for sharing information and data 

− Develop of an overall maintenance concept for all CBM activities within Shift2Rail programme 

− Analyse and integrate different data sources (comprehending vehicle and wayside) that can be used for CBM of passenger trains 

− Develop a CBM model that suggests necessary maintenance activities in advance 

− Propose optimised procedures for passenger trains and integrate them into a management process 

− Develop semantics of CBM data and requirements for standardisation concerning in/outputs and related to physical interfaces, data flow and format, physical data transmission and on-board rolling stock software and databases 

 

Integrated Mobility Management (WA4) 61 

 

The activities of the proposed action should include: 

− Upgrading the specification of the Data structure of the Integration layer to meet freight operation requirements and the development of prototypes representing the enhanced status. These activities address the specification and development of additional Information packets required for high efficient freight operations and their integration into the Integration and Implementation into the Integration Layer specified under IN2RAIL and IP2 TD2.9. This will link Traffic Management System (IP2), Asset Status Presentation (IP3) and Freight Operations (IP5) 

− Specifying and developing advanced business application modules applied in TMS enabling the increase of performance of Rail Freight Operations. 

 

Human Capital (WA6) 

The content of the member call comprehends the collaboration with the open call (OC S2R-OC-CCA-01-2017) and tender call (S2R/2016/OP/02) related to “Human Capital”. The four different topics of the open calls and tender calls include: 

1. Analysis of the change of job profiles in future railway systems (TC) 

2. Skills and qualifications: analysis of the effects of new technologies on the skills of the system operators and the requirements for qualification (TC) 

3. Creating agile organisations for increased flexibility and autonomy for blue collar workers (TC) 

4. Customer-oriented design of mobility: simplification of a system will attract more customers. (OC) 

 

The work includes the following activities: 

− Definition of requirements and future needs to be taken into account in the future development of the railway system and making sure that the railway-specific goals of the CCA-Human Capital are met 

− Providing the perspective of the operator to assure that the specific requirements are taken into account and the results of the work of the OC and TC are valid 

− Providing data and return on experience 

− Defining the implications of the research of the OC/TC and the path of transformation for the application of the research results for the future railway system 

 

The implementation of this action requires close collaboration with IN2Rail project (‘lighthouse’ project resulting from H2020 call MG2.1-2014)38. 

38 However, as the EC Work Programme 2014-2015 does not contain sufficiently detailed requirements, the provisions on complementary grants in the S2R MGA are not mandatory for the beneficiaries of In2Rail project , who may accept them on a voluntary basis, subject to their explicit agreement. 

The action that is expected to be funded under this topic will be complementary to the action(s) that are expected to be funded under the topic: 

− S2R-OC-CCA-01-2017: Standardisation, smart maintenance and human capital 

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The action expected to be funded from this topic will also be complementary to actions carried out following the topics: 

− S2R-CFM-CCA-01-2015 – Start-up activities for System Platform Demonstrator Integrated Assessment and socio-economic effects 

− S2R-CFM-CCA-02-2015 – Energy and sustainability, including noise and vibrations baselines assessment 

− S2R-CFM-CCA-03-2015 – Integrated Mobility and Safety Management 

− S2R-CFM-IP3-02-2016 – Intelligent maintenance systems and strategies. 

 

As specified in section 2.3.1 of S2R AWP for 2017, in order to facilitate the contribution to the achievement of S2R objectives, the options regarding 'complementary grants' of the S2R Model Grant Agreement and the provisions therein, including with regard to additional access rights to background and results for the purposes of the complementary grant(s), will be enabled in the corresponding S2R Grant Agreements. 

The S2R JU will only fund one proposal under this topic. 

Expected Impact: 

The activities are expected to contribute to the achievement of Shift2Rail objectives by: 

Socio-Economic Effects, System Platform Demonstrators & Integrated Assessment 

− specifying socio-economic effects and future options to which S2R targets and activities need to be compared; 

− analysing the factors to increase the attractiveness of the railway system based on the extended and prioritized knowledge about customer obstacles, customer requirements and future needs to use the railway system, railway undertakings get the scientific based knowledge for new activities to attract additional customers 

− delivering a validated KPI Model for the railway system 

− delivering baseline and Shift2Rail project scenarios for future railway systems 

 

Standardisation 

The proposal will contribute to deliver innovative and faster processes for standardisation activities in order to accelerate the market deployment of the overall Shift2Rail results. 

It will contribute to improve the achievement of the Shift2Rail objectives by: 

− giving advice on the way of drafting standards 

− providing the best market up-take to the results with ready to use standards 

− helping in the definition of the best methods and processes to be used in S2R guidelines for standardisation 

 

Smart Maintenance 

− increasing availability of vehicles and infrastructure by reducing unplanned fails and outage 

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− reducing maintenance costs by 10% 

 

Integrated Mobility Management 

− enabling a capacity increase of 10% of Freight Rail Traffic through the integration of dynamic Asset status update developed under IP3 and freight specific business logic applied in a future for TMS developed under IP2 in TD9 

− enabling cost improvements by integrating different new functional applications and modes that will lead at least a 10% cumulated savings. 

 

Human Capital 

The proposed activity will contribute to overcome the challenges imposed by demographic change and to balance the benefits and risks for the human capital in the system imposed by comprehensive and radical technological innovations through increasing: 

− job profiles, skills and life-long development of new skills 

− flexibility for employer and (blue collar) employees, also considering safety requirements 

− attractiveness of the railway system through customer-oriented design. 

 

Specific metrics and methods to measure and achieve impacts should be included in the proposals, with the objective to achieve by the end of the S2R Programme the quantitative and qualitative targets defined in the S2R MAAP in line with the relative planning and budget. 

Type of Action: 

Research and Innovation Actions 



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