Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IN2STEMPO (Innovative Solutions in Future Stations, Energy Metering and Power Supply)

Teaser

Rail travel is an increasingly popular means of travel in European countries. Historically, railway stations were often designed as a statement of grandeur and reflected the economic importance of a nation or city. However, much of the 20th century saw a decline in the...

Summary

Rail travel is an increasingly popular means of travel in European countries. Historically, railway stations were often designed as a statement of grandeur and reflected the economic importance of a nation or city. However, much of the 20th century saw a decline in the importance of rail and station design became very utilitarian, focussing almost exclusively on rail industry requirements.

The 21st century has witnessed a paradigm shift in terms of the number of rail passengers, the increasing use of the railway as a means of low-carbon freight transport, but perhaps most significantly, in the expectations of technology savvy customers who demand a variety of services and experiences hitherto unavailable at stations or in the wider rail industry.

Consequently, the railway industry needs greater flexibility to change and react. It needs to embrace and develop new technologies, so that it can meet and exceed the expectations of its customers. At its core, this means not only improving the customer facing parts of the railway system, but also upgrading and innovating in engineering disciplines such as High Voltage Power Systems, Energy Metering, Smart and Intelligent Infrastructure and making best use of advances in IT technologies.

In2Stempo research and development project seeks to harness the advances in these technologies to reduce rail’s life-cycle costs, improve its capacity and performance whilst ensuring that the customer is at the heart of all we are undertaking.

Work performed

In2Stempo is still at an early stage and there are no completed technical deliverables at this stage. However, progress on individual tasks is on-track and it is expected that in the next reporting period we will be able to provide more detailed information.

Objectives within In2Stempo are divided into three main research categories;
1. Future Stations (WP6,7,8 & 9).
2. Energy Management (WP4 & 5).
3. Power Supply (WP2 & 3).

Project progress at a strategic level includes the successful transition of the In2Rail project outputs (specifically final demonstrator specifications and architecture report) into In2Stempo Project’s Milestone (MS) number 8. This enabled the work related to In2Stempo’s WP4 (Railway System Smart Metering Use Cases) and WP5 (Smart Metering Technology Development and Implementation).

Additionally, the research work in Open Call complementary projects, Fair Stations and In2Dreams, is being integrated into In2Stempo with full collaboration of partners from both projects, especially in relation to the work in In2Stempo’s WP4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

To ensure full exploitation between In2Stempo and other Shift2Rail Innovation Programmes (IP’s) analyses has been completed within WP10 to identify WP and Task synergies. This work has resulted in collaboration with colleagues from IP4 projects (e.g. CONNECTIVE).

Previous EU research has also been reviewed with the findings from the EU funded (FP7) Secure Stations project being updated and incorporated into WP9 – Safety Management in Public Areas. This work ensures the exploitation of both past research and the most recent advances in knowledge and technology and will inform WP work to be conducted in 2019.

Whilst still at an early stage, the In2Stempo programme is making good progress towards achieving its deliverables and will continue to develop and integrate advances in technology that contribute towards the overall Shift2rail objectives.

Final results

The ambitions of Shift2Rail which are inherited by In2Stempo project require substantial ground-breaking improvements in the energy technology area and station area addressed by the project. Each of the individual Work Package task activities have been developed with respect to the technical progress beyond the current “State of the Art”.

The railway stretches across most of Europe and impacts millions of lives. It contributes to economic and social development, bringing jobs, transport links and other benefits to local communities. It is also increasingly a relatively clean form of transport that is a contributor towards reducing global CO2 emissions, improving air quality and proactively manage biodiversity. These are collectively termed as the ‘three pillars of sustainability’:
1. People (Social Impact) – the railway has a long history of improving the quality of life for people who are able to use it. This includes local job creation and increasing incomes, increase in local businesses and recreational facilities, reduction in social deprivation and provision of local, regional and long-distance transport.
2. Planet (Environmental Impact) – the railway provides a means of low-carbon transport for both passengers and freight and is a key part of reducing carbon emissions and tackling future climate change. It can also significantly improve air quality in major cities and contribute towards improving biodiversity and the local ecology.
3. Profit (Economic Impact) – improving rail infrastructure has a positive impact on local businesses and national GDP. Improving the connectivity of national cities as well as European countries will also increase tourism and other commercial activities (retail, leisure etc).

The In2Stempo research contributes towards these three pillars of sustainability and will further enhance and expand on the benefits experienced by local communities and wider European society.

Progress beyond ‘state of the art’ cannot be fully reported at this stage but is expected that improvements in energy mapping will enable an entire system approach to be used. This will be a ‘step change’ from current practice and will enable traction and non-traction energy consumption to be analysed at a very granular level.

Similarly advances in intelligent infrastructure and automated controls will enable a step change in terms of rail utilisation and predictive maintenance/fault analyses.

Finally, advances in IT technology and, in particular, the use of mobile phone apps has the potential to dramatically change the way travelling customers use and experience the railway. It is expected that for ‘persons of reduced mobility’ (PRM) this technology will significantly increase their access to rail services.

Website & more info

More info: https://projects.shift2rail.org/s2r_ip3_n.aspx.