The Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (ERJU) has allocated a total of EUR 232.8 million in funding for six projects. This was the first call for proposals issued by the research initiative that succeeds the European Union’s (EU) Shift2Rail (S2R) initiative. The six multi-year projects will cost a total of EUR 568.4 million. They focus specifically on network management, automation and digitalisation of rail operations, sustainable and resilient systems, rail freight transport in the supply chain, as well as regional and feeder lines. The first of the projects is Motional, which is being coordinated by German company Hacon. French state railway SNCF is the coordinator for the R2dato project to examine automation and digitalisation, including autonomous train operations. Iam4rail is focusing on holistic and integrated asset management and is being coordinated by Spanish infrastructure manager Adif. Alstom is the coordinator for Rail4earth, which will research green and sustainable railway systems. The Trans4m-r project is concerned with transforming European rail freight transport and is coordinated by German state railway DB. The sixth and final project to be selected is FutuRe, which aims to deliver rail transport services to revitalise feeder lines and regional services. The project coordinator is French supplier Faiveley Transport.
