EUROPE: A phalanx of trade associations from across the rail and logistics sectors has issued a position paper calling for the EU to push ahead with a successor to the Europe’s Rail research body.
The nine bodies are calling on the European institutions to ensure a successor to the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking in the next European Research Framework Programme.
They say that rail research and innovation is ‘a key success factor in strengthening the single market, delivering a harmonised Single European Rail Area and expanding the competitiveness and global market leadership of the European rail supply industry as well as the European economy as a whole’.
The position paper sets an expectation that the Europe’s Rail successor would be funded to the tune of at least €3bn, of which half would come from EU sources and half from the rail industry.
A further €15bn would be needed ‘for pre-deployment to support the needed technological maturity level and accelerate the market uptake. This will allow long-term private investments to be leveraged, increase the competitiveness of the European rail supply industry and contribute to achieving the goals of SERA by increasing the rail market share’, the partners say.
The paper adds that ‘a Joint Undertaking has been key in overcoming the divergence and the lack of continuity of R&I in the rail sector, by developing a long-term strategy, in close cooperation with all stakeholders’. Benefits the partners identify include:
- a co-ordinated EU-level approach to align new technology deployment across varying national and local systems;
- tangible results with real added value: the consistency and long-term nature of the programme allows for the development of technologies from low Technology Readiness Level to pre-deployment and market uptake;
- predictability and shared risk management to leverage private investment;
- creating a rail R&I ecosystem including SMEs, start-ups & academia which promotes collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Among the tangible benefits cited by the signatories of the two EU rail research JUs established to date, Shift2Rail and Europe’s Rail, are ‘sector support for the development of the Future Railway Mobile Communication System; the Digital Automatic Coupling; evolution of ERTMS; Digital Twin technologies; solutions supporting the use of zero-emission propulsion engines or low-cost solutions for regional rail’.
The authors of the position paper are:
- The Community of European Railway & Infrastructure Companies;
- ERTMS Accredited Labs;
- European infrastructure managers’ association EIM;
- Fedecrail, the European Federation of Museum & Tourist Railways;
- The International Union of Wagon Keepers;
- intermodal freight association UIRR;
- public transport association UITP;
- European suppliers’ association UNIFE;
- The International Union of Railways.
