UIC hosted the ERRAC-Roadmap Workshop “Exploiting potentials for the energy management in the rail sector” on January 21st, 2010 with participants from railway undertakings, infrastructure managers, manufacturers and national research and technology platforms. The ERRAC Roadmap (ERRAC - European Rail Research Advisory Council) aims at providing a common vision for the European railway sector covering the fields of environment, modal shift, sustainable urban transport, improving safety and security as well as strengthening competitiveness. The goal of this roadmap is a holistic strategy document for the railway sector including railway operators and manufactures. This common approach should lead to well assessed research and development activities with a strong strategic focus. Work Package 1, led by Christophe Cheron (SNCF) and supported by Enno Wiebe on the UIC side, intends to provide three contributions to this large roadmap process. The first contribution will be an energy roadmap followed by a strategy for noise and vibration mitigation and finally a concept for optimised recycling and environmental friendly products.
This event provided a platform for the exchange of cross-sectoral good practise from the automotive sector and stationary energy storage systems. The workshop’s discussions by the railway experts were enriched by the two speakers’ point of view coming from different (“non-railway”) industry sectors. The main focus of the discussions in the joint working groups was on energy storage and the associated management in the railway infrastructure, the need for identifying fields of application and the hybridisation of energy and other energy saving potentials.
After partially very controversial discussions the participants finally came out the workshop with good ideas for the contribution for the ERRAC Roadmap “Energy”. The workshop’s results will now be added to the deliverable “Energy” and later transferred to the overall strategy document. UIC’s active contribution to the ERRAC roadmap process ensures that UIC-members’ interest are well taken into account and that the ERRAC Roadmap is well in line with the existing strategy documents at UIC like the approved “PTR Strategy Programme 2020” (now RSF Strategy Programme 2020 – Rolling Stock) or the “Environment, Energy and Sustainability Strategy 2030 and beyond” strategy.
The ERRAC Roadmap and its different parts will support the discussion about research and development needs between ERRAC and its partners and the European Commission.
