The rail freight sector is facing a multitude of challenges such as lack of network capacity and productivity. Manual processes still entail worker’s safety risks. Rail must adopt the emerging digital technologies to meet the customer needs. FP5-TRANS4M-R brings together 71 partners from end-users, large industry, railway undertakings – operators and wagon keepers, SMEs, academia and research, delivering on the rail freight sector’s commitment to increase of the modal split share to 50% by 2030 revoking the causality between economic growth in Europe and pollution as well as congestions, positively impacting Europe’s citizens quality of life. FP5-TRANS4M-R’s overall goal is to establish rail freight as backbone of the lowest emission and most resilient logistics chain in Europe fulfilling the end customer requirements to their full satisfaction. Two technology clusters “Full Digital Freight Train Operation (FDFTO)” and “Seamless Freight Operation” will develop, validate and demonstrate the FP5-TRANS4M-R technologies following an integrated systemic approach across the sector, in a competitive manner - as only then the expected automation benefits can be fully realised. Integrating DAC-enabled solutions at non- arguable interoperability with software defined systems and digital rail services will lead to increased capacity, higher throughput and shorter transportation duration. It will strengthen the cross-border coordination and cooperation between rail infrastructure managers and finally deliver optimised overall management of the rail network. FP5-TRANS4M-R's credo is: seamless, integrated, interoperable, validated and EU-wide authorised solutions, to achieve a single EU rail freight technology framework with strictly managed interfaces for an effective system integration and seamless operation across countries, actors and modes. These objectives set the foundation, frame, and ambition for the project with an impact on the overall transport and logistics sector in EU.

Since 2008, the twelve railway companies’ members of the “European Charter for development of social initiatives in stations” have shared concerns regarding persons living in highly precarious circumstances in the stations. Indeed, the presence of such a public is challenging the usual practices of railway agents in stations (service agents, security agents, maintenance agents, cleaning agents etc.).Several issues are common. Firstly, the agents working in station feel, more often than not, helpless when dealing with homeless persons. They express an urgent need of information on homeless people’s situation and training regarding the existing social intervention schemes and techniques. Secondly, the programmes already implemented in the railway companies have not been made durables or capitalised. Co-construction is at the heart of the “TRAIN in Stations” project. Its goal is to create and implement a common training programme, on the basis of what already exists and on the development of truly innovative modules, built from a common reflection shared by all the actors intervening in stations.The project aims at preparing the first European class on social intervention in stations, and to implement and evaluate a first training session in each company.Seven entities from five European countries are members of this project. Five railway companies, Bulgaria (National Railway Infrastructure Company), France (Société Nationale des Chemin de fer Français), Italy (Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) and Luxemburg (Société nationale des chemins de fer luxembourgeois) and two NGOs : the Italian social cooperative Europe Consluting Onlus and the French non-governmental organisation Agence Nouvelle des Solidarités Actives. Each of these entities has a strong expertise regarding training and experiences of everyday social assistance and management.The project “TRAIN in Stations” lays on several transnational and regular meetings. In a concern for good governance, several collective workshops will be organised every five months in the cities involved in the project (Luxemburg, Paris, Rome and Sofia). The objectives of the meetings are:- Sharing knowledge and goof practices among national trainers (site-seeing)- Co-constructing the training programme- Planning a steering committee meeting, with one member representativeThese five European meetings will address different issues of the training session in order to build together with the trainers and the managers the common training program, and with the help of experts on social issues in stations. These meetings will be built on a clear co-constructive stance. In that regard, the national and sectorial diversity will allow a truly comprehensive reflection regarding the current practices. It will constitute a great richness for the constitution of a common project, based on points of view and experiences sharing.In order to achieve this methodological aim, different methods are to be used: focus-groups with homeless persons, active sites-seeing (exchanges with local social actors), capitalising and reflecting periods and construction time around concrete supports (such as e-learning or trainers’guide).The emphasis on practices’ capitalisation and needs’ analysis will allow the development of truly innovative methods and tools, adapted to the different European settings. The use of e-learning methods will facilitate this process.For each company, training programmes will be implemented which should make professional practices change. On an European level, the “TRAIN in Stations” project should steer and innovative dynamics between European companies, especially the ones signatory of the Charter.In the long run, the “TRAIN in Stations” project hopes to disseminate good practices regarding training programmes on the European territory and create a positive dynamics vis à vis social care for homeless persons.

Europe's fragmented transport system, characterised by a diverse range of national regulations, necessitates innovative solutions. This densely populated, polycentric landscape presents a unique opportunity to address congestion, decarbonise transport, and connect regions. Recognising the transformative potential of hyperloop technology, Hyper4Rail aims to shape future mobility by converging European efforts towards a standardised hyperloop system. Led by the Hyperloop Development Program (HDP), Hyper4Rail brings together key European players – major hyperloop developers and Rail Europe members – to establish a common European hyperloop design concept at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 2. This will be followed by demonstrating core subsystems at TRL 4 and defining pathways for industrialization and commercialisation, underpinned by a business case that identifies potentially viable use cases. Aligning with the EU's industrial strategy, Hyper4Rail fosters a technology-agnostic approach, leadership in standard setting, and the development of resilient passenger transport and supply chains. Hyper4Rail pursues a two-pronged approach: (1) technical harmonisation, industrialisation roadmaps, and applicability studies at TRL 2; and (2) design concept and validation of key subsystems at TRL 4. This directly addresses the goals of the Europe's Rail Joint Undertaking's Multiannual Work Programme (MAWP), particularly Flagship Area 7: "Innovation on new approaches for guided transport modes". As stated in the MAWP, this area seeks to explore "non-traditional and emerging flexible and/or high-speed guided transport systems," including "new types of railway-based transport, such as ultra-high-speed trains". Hyperloop technology aligns strongly with this vision, aiming to provide a socioeconomically efficient and long-term sustainable transport solution for citizens and businesses across Europe.

Assets4Rail shares the Shift2Rail view of having an ageing European railway infrastructure that needs to cope with the expected increased traffics in the future. Likewise, reliable rolling stock will be required to crystallize the desired modal shift to rail. Both goals relay on a proactive and cost-effective maintenance and intervention system in the assets. Assets4Rail aims to contribute to this modal shift by exploring, adapting and testing cutting-edge technologies for railway asset monitoring and maintenance. To achieve that, Assets4Rail follows a twofold approach, including infrastructure (tunnel, bridges, track geometry, and safety systems) and vehicles. A dedicated information model (BIM) will be the keystone of the infrastructure part of the project. This model with integrated algorithms will gather and analyze the information collected by specific sensors which will monitor subsurface tunnel defects, fatigue consumption, noise and vibrations of bridges as well as track geometry. On the other hand, train monitoring will include the installation of track-side and underframe imaging automated system to collect data for detecting specific types of defects that have non-negligible impacts on infrastructure. The additional use of the RFID technology will enable the smooth identification of trains and single elements, associated with the identified rolling stock failures. The combination of mentioned real-time collected data with existing data along the implementation of deep learning techniques for assessing large data volumes will pave the way towards a cost-effective and proactive maintenance process of infrastructure and rolling stock. In addition, two innovative intervention methods, noise rail dampers and the cleaning of long tunnel drainage pipes, will be validated on field. Assets4Rail will benefit from a strong multidisciplinary consortium committed to concrete exploitation activities aligned towards the achievement of the challenging project objectives.

Combining expertise across all facets of transport and analytical tools, WE-TRANSFORM aims to apply a participatory approach, using Collective Intelligence (CI), to generate an evidence-based and action-oriented agenda to research, formulate and prioritize the challenges connected to the effects of automation on the transport labour force, on future working conditions and on skills requirements. The WE-TRANSFORM consortium, leveraging existing data and people’s expertise, and empowered by the range and depth of its composition, will create a system of thematic and modal cross-national living hub as a knowledge & prioritization agenda-creation platform, offering a path forward for smarter decisions, more innovative and evidence-based policymaking, through informed governance. The approach of WE-TRANSFORM is highly collaborative, promoting discovery, debate and prioritization of themes by the active participation of representative types of stakeholders, using state-of-the-art data collection and analysis tools while drawing information and themes for the collectively constructed agenda from wide-ranging environments. The composition of the consortium and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to be used guarantee access and involvement across a wide range of relevant parties ranging from transport-chains’ stakeholders and extending to citizens’ associations and beyond including information mining from electronic social media. Robust analytical tools are combined with information findings drawn at AI speed and coverage potential, while the simulation of a social debate within a living hub environment allows the dialogue and ultimately the formulation of a collectively defined agenda enriched with co-created knowledge. The proposal includes also a final provision for maintaining the electronic environment created in a sustainable way as to serve for future research in the area.