SHIFT ² RAIL Joint Technology Initiative Strengthening Industrial innovation for the Future of rail Transport Summary paper Contact: Giorgio Travaini giorgio.travaini@unife.org 1) Introduction - meeting policy and industrial challenges The European rail sector is a major provider of jobs in Europe and beyond and is recognised as a world leader, a position that was gained through the development of innovative, hightechnology solutions. However, this leadership is challenged by emerging competitors from Asia, some of whom are already in a position to supply rail products on world markets at very competitive prices. Continuous innovation in the rail sector is also necessary to fulfil the European Union s objective of shifting a significant share of the continent s transport of passengers and goods from the road and air modes to more sustainable and less carbon intensive means such as rail. Some key areas for innovation that will help increase the capacity of the rail transport system, make its development more sustainable and attractive to the final customer and to the public, include:- The development of a new generation of Energy and Mass Efficient Passenger Trains able to reduce axle loads and increase passenger capacity through the introduction of mechatronics, composite materials and advanced traction and braking technologies; The evolution of a new ERTMS generation that will make use of advanced positioning and communication technologies to speed its deployment and acceptance as a global standard; The demonstration of new vehicle and IT technologies to attract business to the rail freight sector; Innovations to improve the attraction and efficiency of Urban Transit by better intermodal interfacing and energy utilization; Measures to enhance the Safety and Integrity of the Mainline and Urban Transit Systems by Virtual Certification and Homologation, for example; Technological innovation is acknowledged as an essential instrument for European suppliers to maintain their leadership and continue to provide competitive rail products. The specificities of research in the rail sector call for the establishment of appropriate research instruments, at the European level. After more than 10 years of close cooperation in the field of research and technical development within Level 1 and Level 2 European projects, the rail supply industry is now ready and needs to make a step change in rail research and development into Level 3
activities and to set up a Joint Technology Initiative (JTI). It is therefore seeking the support of the European Institutions for a rail related research initiative and would encourage priority for Rail-related R&D and Innovation in the upcoming Horizon 2020 - the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. The following paper discusses the benefits to all stakeholders of establishing such a large scale, result-orientated and long-term public-private research project. It is the strong belief of the railway manufacturing industry that a JTI will be crucial to the preservation of its market leadership, whilst helping the EU to meet its policy objectives with regard to the environment, transport, and industrial policy. The rail industry aims to obtain an approval of the European Parliament and Council so as to start the JTI work in the coming two years. UNIFE and its member companies call EU decision-makers to provide full support to the SHIFT²RAIL initiative. 2) Research and the railway sector Due to the current structure of the sector, innovation in the rail industry faces a number of specific challenges in comparison to other modes of transport, roads and air in particular: - The rail manufacturing industry does not generate sufficient operational margins neither to finance speculative research, nor to allow for short cycle renewal of the products; - the products renewal cycle is extremely long (an electric locomotive of 40 years old is still a modern traction tool, intensively used) and tends to hamper innovation; - the strong and complex interfacing of all parts of the rail system (infrastructure, control-command, electrification, vehicles) makes it difficult, even for a major supplier alone, to move the lines and propose breakthrough innovation; - Last but not least, the lack of standardised products acts as a deterrent for innovation. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES SPECIFICITIES: Operational margin Product Renewal cycle _ velocity Low level of External Costs Easy system interface Standardised products Significant R&D EU initiative on industrial technology: CleanSky (JTI) Greencar (PPP) SHIFT²RAIL (JTI)
3) JTIs as a means to overcome obstacles to research in the railway sector Whilst significant results are being achieved under the existing European funded research programmes through Collaborative Projects (typically under the FP6 and FP7 research programme), the rail transport sector has today neither the best structure nor the appropriate instruments to launch major industrial research initiatives for the validation of technology into integrated demonstrators, which would be needed to overcome the abovementioned obstacles. In this respect, setting up a JTI for the rail sector offers considerable benefits: - SHIFT²RAIL will allow for managing research projects in an integrated way that lead to technology validation in important demonstrators, where industry create the necessary critical mass to provide a tangible contribution to the market s and EU policy s needs; - SHIFT²RAIL will focus on industry-driven research with long term commitment of Named Beneficiaries to: o streamline the innovation process from research to the market uptake o help fighting against the fragmentation of the R&I efforts; - The long term commitment of the Named Beneficiaries will trigger the participation of a greater proportion of SMEs especially the most innovative - in research than under the current EU research regimes.
- Last but not least, the stable nature of JTIs also guarantees good conditions for planning and budgeting. The setting up of a Joint Undertaking structure with dedicated staff for SHIFT²RAIL will allow for a fast and efficient administration service in a competitive industrial environment 4) The rail JTI concept - SHIFT²RAIL SHIFT²RAIL will develop and implement a new way of addressing the challenges for innovation in technology highlighted above. Two key objectives have been identified by the initiative: Increasing capacity so as to enable rail to absorb a greater share of traffic growth; and Attract business and improve the efficiency of the rail transportation mode as a whole The JTI will contribute to an increase in the overall efficiency of the rail transport system, satisfy transport user s needs, and at the same time help to foster the competitiveness of the European manufacturing industry, through the implementation of technological innovation. A significant contribution to this development will be made in SHIFT²RAIL through the integration of advanced technologies offered by the market into: - Independent Technology Demonstrators allowing for the implementation of innovative technologies, often coming from other industry sectors, within railway sub-systems, e.g. new generation traction drives and brake systems based on innovative constituents. - Test Platforms integrating these innovative constituents, e.g. one or several high speed trains adapted to the specific testing of innovative rolling stock sub-system demonstrators - Full Scale Integrated System Demonstrators such as a new radio based ERTMS system - The integration of the innovative constituents into Technical Sub-systems (Rolling stock, Control-command, Electrification etc.) will be done on the basis of agreed standard system architectures, incorporating rigorous interface standards. This high level of interface standardisation will allow the JTI consortium members to gain confidence in the market acceptability of the products that they will ultimately offer to their clients, industry integrators, operators or infrastructure managers, as a result of innovation. By enlarging the market base for the innovative constituents, the standard architectures will also contribute to the increased competitiveness of the industry, which is the ultimate objective of the initiative. Last, but not the least, it will be an efficient tool for the integration of future innovations and compensate for increasing obsolescence during the extended life of some products. 5) SHIFT²RAIL key research areas and EU policies SHIFT²RAIL will aim to investigate as-yet-unproven technologies and knowledge and will develop innovative activities to support research and innovation all along the railway value chain. The JTI will respond to the unique character of each of the three major market
clusters in the way that it meets the two high level objectives set, namely Increasing Capacity and Attracting Business onto the Railways. SHIFT²RAIL identified five Innovation programmes able to match the market need for continued European rail industrial leadership and sector competitiveness with the challenge for a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth within European Union. Each Innovation programme is an interdependent core of research tasks which cannot be fragmented without detriment to the overall objectives of the initiative. The Innovation programme s research tasks have strong links with European policy objectives: - The figure below identifies in synthetic way in red the main EU policies with provides the main targets that SHIFT²RAIL will have to respond; - Meanwhile, a Technical Annex (a preliminary R&D programme) have been developed and provides clear targets that will be monitored within the rail JTI activities with agreed performances indicators - for each of the technological advances present in the SHIFT²RAIL innovation programmes.
This approach is therefore able to combine policy matching and technological performance indicators to demonstrate quantifiable benefits for each Innovation programme. The SHIFT²RAIL promoters foresee that those quantifiable benefits will have an impact and overall contribution of 25-35% to the achievement of the EU policies targets. The fact that very few innovations in the rail sector over the past decades have occurred outside the orbit of the major European players can only reassure the European Institutions that SHIFT²RAIL will be able to reach its ambitious objectives and that the technology contribution to the EU policies will be truly significant.
Energy and Mass Efficient Rolling Stock (1) Composite and Hybrid Body-shell Structures for Rolling Stock Standardised automated manufacturing processes for metallic body-shells The Next Generation of Lightweight Door Systems and PRM Solutions Energy and Mass Efficient Rolling Stock (2) Low Noise/Low Drag Pantographs A New Generation of high efficiency Traction Systems DC/DC Traction with Medium Frequency Transformers to save weight Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning for the Future Enabling Technologies and fundamental railway science for the future The improved Energy Management of Passenger Trains Energy and Mass Efficient Rolling Stock (3) Next Generation TCMS and on-board IT Evolve On-Board Wireless TCMS Standards New On-Board Multi-Media Standard Interfaces The Virtual Homologation of Train Control and Management Systems Energy Efficiency in passenger trains Energy and Mass Efficient Rolling Stock (4) Mechatronic Low Impact Bogie Brake Discs in New Materials All electric and high pressure compressed air brakes New high efficiency brake controls and AGT Improve the Attraction of Rail Freight Tracking the movement of dangerous cargoes on the network. Long freight trains through pinch points on the network Enable the rail transport of refrigerated containers (REEFERS) on the network Facilitate improvements to Single Wagon Freight shipments Improve IT Management for Intermodal Freight Improve the Attraction and Efficiency of Urban Transit New Generation of Communication Based Train Control Systems Catenary-free Urban Infrastructure for street operations Reduction of generated and transmitted noise and vibration Urban Mobility Passenger Information Systems Urban Mobility Energy Management Systems Real Time Multi-Modal Traffic Management Support Safety and Integrity of the Rail System Interoperable supervision systems based on open IT platforms Robust and reliable Video Surveillance systems IT Security for Signalling and Communication Systems New, automated wheel-set inspection processes during manufacture Standardization of a framework and interfaces for data transfer from rolling stock vehicles Rolling Stock Certification and Homologation Services Unified Test Procedures and Virtual validation of Mechanical Components Technologies to optimise LCC Improve Main Line Capacity New Generation Radio Based ETCS/ERTMS Control Command and Signalling System Innovative Protection devices for AC Traction Supplies New Energy Management Systems The trackside elements of Energy Regeneration Systems including Smart Grids Inspection Gates for the identification of potentially damaging pantographs 6) SHIFT²RAIL Organisation The Rail JTI proposal has been initiated by the companies which have signed the Declaration of Intent on the Launch of a Joint Technology Initiative in the European Rail sector on 1 st July 2011. They are also managing the preparation of the first draft of the Industrial Plan. The logos of these companies are displayed on the cover page of the present paper. In the graphic below you can see the already wide repartitions in EU27 of the companies already participating in the SHIFT²RAIL initial works, covering already 19 Member States! In addition other industries may become part of the Joint Undertaking and SHIFT²RAIL aim to an intensive collaboration programme with innovative SMEs that may come from Countries not yet contributing to the rail sector but that indeed they will within this industrially driven initiative.
CAF Invensys Rail Ansaldo STS Knorr Bremse Bombardier Balfour Beatty Rail Siemens CAF CAF Invensys Rail Talgo Vossloh Knorr Bremse CAF Vossloh Talgo Vossloh Balfour Beatty Rail Ansaldo Breda Balfour Beatty Rail Knorr Bremse Membership and governance: SHIFT²RAIL will be run and primarily implemented by future consortium members who will commit to invest significant amounts of their own R&D and technology innovation budgets, as integrators of the innovative technologies into demonstrators of innovation constituents. The core organisation within the JTI will be a Joint Undertaking (JU) gathering together Technology Innovation Driver (TID) members and Associate members as well as the European Commission. Additional JTI partners will perform research answering to open Calls for proposals (partners) and/or Calls for Tender (subcontractors) issued by the JU since their participation is limited in duration and scope.
Relations with the ERRAC: Since it deals only with technology innovation, SHIFT²RAIL will not be sufficient to meet by itself alone all the European Union s long term high ambitions for rail. It will, nonetheless, contribute to the development and execution of the wider strategic research plan for the European rail system, under the umbrella of ERRAC (the European Rail Research Advisory Council). ERRAC will be involved in the creation of the research plans and scope of the JTI. Later on, as with other on-going and successful JTIs, ERRAC will ensure the alignment of the JTI activities with the SRRA, provide support for updating the strategic objectives, ensure a link with past R&D funded activities and ensure consistency with future collaborative research topics. In addition, ERRAC will have to manage the interface between technological innovations in the JTI scope and other innovations needed for a general improvement in capacity, attractiveness and competitiveness of the European rail transportation system. Interface with other stakeholders: Other stake holders will be invited participate in monitoring and consultative bodies: The JTI strategic council - monitor the execution of the work plan and the fulfilment of the objectives The JTI Economic and Technological Intelligence Observatory - advise the JTI Board on technologies and new scientific concepts that should be considered for in the future work plan; propose lists of independent experts, etc. System requirements and Implementation groups corresponding to the different JTI innovation programs - will intervene in the specification of the innovation constituents as well as in the validation phase, including in elaborating the standardisation plan and content.
7) SHIFT²RAIL - funding The financial commitment of all the signatories, who consider themselves as being the potential Technology Innovation Driver members, will amount to a minimum of 800 million Euros, over a 6-7 years period, depending on the final scope of the project and subject to the support to be provided by the European Union, under the form of grant allocation to Named Beneficiaries. Additional funds are expected to come in support of the contribution of Associate members, Partners answering call for proposals and tenders, and of other stakeholders involved in the different SHIFT²RAIL supporting groups and committees. The signatories call upon the European Union to support this unprecedented and ambitious technology initiative so as to reflect the political ambitions of the European Union for the European rail sector. The SHIFT²RAIL future budgetary line should complement the additional foreseen funding of other collaborative actions within open call for proposals directly issued by the Commission, in favour of the competitive and sustainable development of the European rail system, under the umbrella of Horizon2020. 8) SHIFT²RAIL - timeline Recognising the complexity of the instrument and the time it takes to set it up, UNIFE envisages a new JTI scheme proposal by the European Commission to be ready for Horizon 2020 - the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation so that SHIFT²RAIL can start its research and innovation activities from 2014. If possible, UNIFE suggests starting already in 2012-2013 with a two year Pilot Project initiative that could help to define the validity of a new JTI scheme to be fully operational in 2014.
9) SHIFT²RAIL - next steps Under the umbrella of UNIFE, the European rail industry looks forward to initiating discussions with EU policy-makers and railways stakeholder to: - Launch as soon as possible the SHIFT²RAIL JTI through the appropriate EU legislative instruments; - Discuss into details the future organisation of the SHIFT²RAIL JTI in partnership with the relevant stakeholders. ***