RTE2021

Extra-long 740-meter freight trains, the automatic and digital coupling of freight wagons, operations on Rotterdam’s harbour line and self-driving freight trains. These are just a few of the more than a hundred topics that are covered during the RailTech Europe digital conference.

Former member of the European Parliament Wim van de Camp has been appointed Dutch Ambassador for the European Year of Rail. State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven of Infrastructure and Water management asked Van de Camp in consultation with representatives of the Dutch railway sector to strengthen the European Year of Rail in the Netherlands.

Last year, a smart camera was installed on the Moerdijk railway site in the Netherlands for the monitoring of incoming freight wagons, especially those with dangerous substances. Karel van Gils, Director of Innovation and Technological Innovation at infrastructure manager ProRail, says in a broadcast interview with Dutch sister magazine SpoorPro that more applications are conceivable, for example in the field of capacity management on railway yards.

Like in any trade event, networking is an important part of RailTech Europe 2021. Especially in these corona times, everyone is looking forward to meeting colleagues again to discuss the latest developments and challenges. RailTech Europe 2021 offers a solution for this with the use of a platform that is fully equipped for online networking.

All EU infrastructure managers are obliged to have a data collection system for the energy consumption of trains by January 2022. Energy management expert Bart van der Spiegel from Infrabel will get the railway sector up to speed about this topic during RailTech Europe. It is the next step in the application of EU legislation that makes it mandatory to exchange data on train energy consumption between various member states.

With RailTech Europe 2021 less than a month away, the nominees for this year’s Innovation Awards are selected. In this article you can read about the nominated companies and how their innovation is relevant to the railway sector. Six Innovation Awards will be given out at the digital event RailTech Europe 2021. 

The biggest drawback of the North Sea-Baltic rail corridor is currently the lack of the European traffic control system ERTMS. Bottlenecks in the network that hinder the operation of 740-meter freight trains should also be tackled as soon as possible, says Catherine Trautmann, who is European coordinator of the North Sea-Baltic rail corridor since 2014.

“We can’t afford to send out a maintenance team when we don’t know what’s going on, we have to anticipate failures”, says Diego Galar, professor of condition monitoring at the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. He will be speaking at RailTech Europe 2021 and in this interview, he talks about the increasing importance of predictive maintenance for high railway capacity and that there is often too much data, but little information.

“Railway operators should work together more. If we get people out of the car and into the train, everyone will benefit”, says Delphine Grandsart, researcher at the European Passenger Federation
(EPF). In this interview, she talks about the needs of passengers, through-ticketing, and the
importance of a user-centered approach for achieving a shift to rail.

The Russian Railways (RZD) will start using first autonomous passenger trains (GoA3) in the regular timetable in September this year. Pavel Popov, responsible for this project at the state-owned company, will tell how he will achieve this ambitious goal during RailTech Europe.