Railway

InSecTT Project will significantly impact the European Union to achieve the fully potential of the IoT and the Artificial Intelligence in the Railway domain. The wireless communications developed in SCOTT project set the basis to help reducing time and costs, making the development and management of rail infrastructures and train compositions smarter and more efficient.

Although SCOTT project scope tackles several issues of the railway domain in terms of Internet of Things and wireless technologies investigation, the functionalities developed in that project could be improved moving the focus to the passenger’s comfort and cargo security, supplying to the SCOTT systems Artificial Intelligence and a better allocation of the control resources.

The development of innovative solutions for movement control, automatic operation, the management of multimodal areas and the distributed rail signalling systems will give the European Rail Supply Chain a competitive advantage in the worldwide market and generate new business opportunities for the European Railway Industry.

The works to be performed in InSecTT project are fully aligned with the innovation and the transformation that have been carried out in the Shift2Rail Innovative Programmes. Several technologies investigated in S2R should be improved with the InSecTT innovation topics as IoT and AI. It is important to remark that the use of AI technologies is just a first step in the integration of these technologies in the railway domain, deeply linked and aligned with S2R baselines and programmes. Several examples of the issues studied in S2R that InSecTT can improve to make railway domain more competitive are:

  • The wireless technologies used to enhance the communication between the different objects and signalling systems
  • Train determination techniques for the solution of a train coupling, making the manoeuvres more comfortable and save for both passengers and cargo.
  • Use of the freight rail innovative solutions to provide a real time management of the cargo in the railway domain, adding the connectivity with other domains thanks to the connection with port facilities.

In this way, the use of Artificial Intelligence on transportation for both Control and Management will improve the rail and road capacity, decreasing the delays and improving the plan, making the transportation experience more comfortable for passengers.

By connecting all-to-all, increasing the level of automation, decentralizing the decisions and enhancing the efficiency of the system, it is possible to enhance the current state of the railway transportation, having an important impact in the domain market.

Concerning the connectivity with the maritime domain, the railway domain will be enriched, increasing the logistics experience by managing the goods at the port with the Terminal Operation System, coordinating Cargo operators with port facilities and external inputs. Moreover, using Vessel positioning and information systems for the control at real-time of cargo management, the rail domain will benefit of a detailed information of the cargo tracking. Both the DG Move and the TEN-T have as an ultimate objective is close the gaps between the different transport networks into a European transport core upgrading the current infrastructures. Both entities claim as common objectives supported by several EU Regulations stated for European Project calls[1][2][3]:

  • Intermodal terminals in ports and hinterland
  • Land and sea access to port, including dredging for the purpose of MoS, rail, inland navigation and road connecting links to the TEN-T or national land transport networks, connections to intermodal centres
  • Electronic logistics management systems
  • Administration and customs facilities
  • Safety and security measures

These objectives are aligned with several of the DG Move bases:

  • An innovative and sustainable transport policy focused on the full deployment of ITS, alternative fuels and urban mobility to achieve low emission mobility and contribute to the achievement of a long-term development of transport in Europe, including by making full use of the instrument of the TEN-T Corridors and beyond.
  • An investment policy in transport, from early conception, through research, development and deployment, with a particular focus on the implementation of the trans-European network for transport, through conventional grants and innovative financial instruments.
  • A full strategy for passenger rights for all transport modes, as well as the social dimension and the aspect of women in transport.

As it stated in the Rail leaded Use Cases description, the main objectives above described are covered.

Gathering all the topics explained above, the expected impacts of InSecTT project concerning the Railway domain are:

  • Increasing the safety of the current coupling processes, making the solution highly competitive and effective in secure and safe related environments.
  • Improving the speed change processes to allow passenger comfort and trust and cargo security by using Artificial Intelligence mechanisms to control the input parameters and smoothing the speed and acceleration/deceleration variations.
  • Providing an improvement of Virtual Coupling maneuvers via Artificial Intelligence by improving the smooth in the speed change processes in order to enhance passengers comfort as well as transport companies trust in this type of virtual composition.
  • Improving the current state of the system to control coupling/decoupling processes in a safe and secure way.
  • Converting conventional lines into ATO lines in a safe and secure way, by means of all-to-all connection in a decentralized environment.
  • Demonstrating new signalling systems based on wireless communications that make possible to connect On Board and On Track stakeholders in a distributed and decentralized environment
  • Enhancing the management of cross-domains areas, specifically rail and road areas and port facilities, focusing on the multimodal jams management.
  • Achievement of a more efficient multi-domain traffic management by allowing to share the vehicles and trains information and distributing it using decentralized systems. In addition, the system can integrate vessels to the network for cargo management.
  • Solving the safety deficiencies in current systems with the purpose of reducing the number of injures and human losses as well as the damages on wagons, cargo and railways infrastructures.
  • Improving the use of multipurpose WSN applying artificial intelligence for the safety and non-critical systems installed on vehicles, trains and multimodal infrastructures, such as railway connected ports.
  • Including distributed solutions to efficiently manage the exchange of information and data distribution through a decentralized system, which controls specific areas and the wayside objects and signalling system, allocated within that area.
  • Increasing punctuality of operating lines reducing time and enhancing the timetable management in an automatic way. It improves the passengers and end-users experience, making the services more trustable.
  • Reducing cost and time concerning coupling services and control of coupled compositions, allowing an efficient management of the track capacity.
  • Enhancing energy efficiency of current railway systems, reducing the environmental impact.
  • Connecting devices and manage them in an intelligent way, increasing the level of automation and enhancing the efficiency of the system.
  • Adding flexibility to the routes and tracks management, by allowing several routes operating at the same time, controlled by an autonomous system, which makes use of Artificial Intelligent methods.

 

[1] Regulation (EU) No 1315/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network and repealing Decision No 661/2010/EU Text with EEA relevance

[2] Regulation (EU) No 283/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2014 on guidelines for trans-European networks in the area of telecommunications infrastructure and repealing Decision No 1336/97/EC Text with EEA relevance

[3] Decision No 1364/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 laying down guidelines for trans-European energy networks and repealing Decision 96/391/EC and Decision No 1229/2003/EC.

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