END OF THE LINE FOR DYNOTRAIN: PROJECT FINISHES AFTER FOUR YEARS OF WORK, MAKING A LASTING CONTRIBUTION TO RAILWAY DYNAMIC STANDARDS AND REGULATION
The project was focussed on testing requirements for certification of rail vehicles in terms of running dynamics (track and vehicle interaction) and had the following high-level objectives:
• Address TSIs that effectively work to harmonise European and national standards on railway dynamics and track interaction to reduce the costs and time of certification;
• Reduce the costs and time of certification by reducing existing tests; and
• Reduce the costs of certification by introducing virtual testing.
The final meeting of the project took place on the 26th and 27th of September and was hosted by project partner Deutschebahn in Frankfurt, Germany. This very successful final meeting was attended by approximately 70 participants, including the vast majority of project partners, with representatives from at least twelve different countries. The meeting also represented an opportunity for the partners to present the work undertaken and results achieved, as well as their proposals for integrations to standards and regulation based upon these, to the assembled stakeholders from outside of the project.
Among the participants were representatives of organisations from across the rail sector. These included the European Railway Agency and the Departments of Transport of countries from within and outside the European Economic Area (such as the United States Department of Transport and Federal Railroad Administration). National Safety Authorities of European Union Member-states were also represented. Infrastructure Managers from outside of the project, from countries both within and outside of the EU, were also in attendance.
Representatives from across the breadth of the industry, including rolling stock manufacturing and manufacturers of machines for track laying and maintenance, as well as international rail technology consultancy groups were present at the meeting. Companies active in international projects in rolling stock engineering and in the development and testing of rail vehicles, were also in attendance. The university and research centre sector was also represented, by organisations both inside and outside of the project consortium.
Information from the meeting, as well as further results from the project, will be available on the DynoTRAIN public website (www.triotrain.eu).
The following partners contributed to the work of DynoTRAIN: UNIFE (Co-ordinator); Alstom (Technical Leader); AnsaldoBreda; Alma; Bombardier; CAF; CEIT; Deutschebahn; Siemens; IFSTTAR; INECO; KTH; Manchester Metropolitan University; Network Rail; Polimi; RFF; RSSB; SNCF; Trenitalia; TU Berlin; University of Huddersfield; UIC; and USR.
This is a very successful project, which achieved its objectives of making contributions to both standards (CEN) and regulation (Technical Specifications for Interoperability, or TSIs). Some of the work undertaken in the project informed recent revisions of European standards and TSIs. Representatives of several CEN Technical Committee 256 (Railway Applications) Working Groups were also at the final meeting.
