Innovation is a key driving force for achieving the future autonomous and smart rail transportation system and for improving the competitiveness of the sector versus the other modes of transport while increasing its attractiveness for the industry and for the citizens. As part of the overall European rail transport policy framework, translated inter alia in the 4th Railway Package, the European Union together with the rail industry at large established a systemic approach to research and innovation with the creation of Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking which pools together all European rail research.
The Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking is a public-private partnership where the Union and key actors of the European rail system work together with a view of driving innovation. The Research and Innovation agenda which is defined in the S2R Master Plan is based on a holistic view of the railway system that allows for the inclusion and consideration of all relevant railway subsystems and actors.
Shift2Rail aims at fostering the introduction of high quality trains to the market (quieter, more comfortable, more dependable, etc.), which will operate on an innovative rail network infrastructure reliably from the first day of service introduction, at a lower life-cycle cost, with more capacity to cope with growing passenger and freight mobility demand.
The S2R Innovation Capabilities of the rail systems of the future will come from innovative solutions (technologies, digitalisation and automation), which will cause radical and disruptive changes in railway processes to better meet customers, passengers and shippers’ needs. The Shift2Rail Programme considers these challenges and covers research related to the management of the changes on the human capital side - such as changes in qualifications and skills, human-machine interface, etc. – as well as research on customer-oriented design for mobility.
Abstract_for_Sixth_International_Human_Factors_Rail_Conference_2017.pdf 