newrail newsletter The centre for railway research at Newcastle University

Q2 2016

TRA Conference NewRailers gave papers at the TRA Conference in

Warsaw, in April. The 6th European Transport

Research Conference: “MOVING FORWARD:

Innovative Solutions for Tomorrow’s Mobility” was

an exceptional event for researchers, industry

representatives and policy makers, helping to

identify the innovative solutions that can drive a

better future transport system for Europe.

NewRail’s Mark Robinson was part of the

programme committee, representing one of the co-

organisers, ERRAC, and Newcastle University was

part of a project consortium organising the TRA

VISIONS competition, that awards prizes for

innovative concepts for transport solutions to

students and also to

senior researchers in

European funded

projects throughout

Europe.

The Winner of the

TRA VISIONS

Student Award in the

rail category was a

UNEW PhD student

- NewRail’s Zi Qian,

who presented her

research on Subway

Climatology.

The TRAVISIONS

Senior Researcher

Award in the rail

category went to Donato Zangani of D’Appolonia,

Italy, project co-ordinator of ‘ALJOIN –

crashworthy joints in aluminium rail vehicles’, a

project in which NewRail was a partner.

NewRail was further involved through the SETRIS

project – Strengthening European Transport

Research & Innovation Strategies, which took part

in the associated exhibition.

WCRR 2016 The theme of the 11th World Congress on Railway

Research – WCRR 2016 - was ‘Promoting the value

and benefits of railway research, technical

innovation and development, worldwide

cooperation and sharing of technological know-how

in the railway field’.

Held at the Stella Polare Convention Centre, Milan,

Italy from 29 May – 2 June, NewRail had a

prominent stand at the associated exhibition, Zi Qian (centre) wins Student Award for rail

Senior Researcher Award:

Donato Zangani, for ALJOIN

newrail newsletter The centre for railway research at Newcastle University

Q2 2016

showcasing our skills in university research, education,

strategy, consultancy and all aspects of rail, including

freight and logistics. The stand was very popular and

attracted visitors from across Europe, as well as Japan,

China, Thailand, South Korea, the USA and Australia.

Papers presented at WCRR 2016 by NewRail were:

Reducing the cost of railway vehicle – key lessons from

the aerospace, Automotive and marine industries: E.

Matsika, C. O’Neill

Wagon, train, hub and business models for future rail

freight services for low density high value goods in

Europe- findings from a gap analysis: T.H. Zunder, R.

Jackson, D.M.Z. Islam

Physical internet concept for designing the rail freight

interchange of the future: R. Kling David, M. Marinov

SMARTSET completes Smartset, an Intelligent Energy Europe project that

started in May 2013, came to a close in April 2016. The

project, which has supported action in the field of clean

urban logistics, has led to many advances in its 8

application cities, in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Austria

and the UK. The project ended with successful final

project workshops in Gothenburg and Sundsvall, in

Sweden. The work carried out by NewRail in

SMARTSET, led by Tom Zunder, focused on the

evaluation, dissemination and take-up of the Coherent

Campus Initiative at Newcastle University and included

the assessment of the availability of commercial freight

vehicles using electric propulsion – where NewRail

identified a potential market failure in the lack of such

vehicles of 7.5t gross weight and above.

More, including the project’s final reports, is available

at www.smartset-project.eu

Railway Talents Also alongside WCRR, the 2nd Railway Talents event

took place, including workshops and networking, as well

as the official launch of the Ambassadors Scheme:

http://www.railtalent.org/ambassadors

NewRail’s Dr Anna Fraszczyk was among those helping

delegates to explore the challenges of international

working - through both face to face and remote

communication; adapting ways of working to meet the

demands of “virtual interaction”; and developing cultural

awareness and self criticism.

Testing of SPARTACUS

NewRail is a partner, and demonstration Work Package

leader, in EU FP7 funded project SPARTACUS, which

aims to design, develop, test and validate - in simulated

and real world scenarios - GALILEO-ready tracking/

positioning solutions for critical asset tracking and crisis

management. The project recently tested the railway

vehicle elements of its online satellite tracking system, at

NewRail’s full scale railway test facilities, at Barrow

Hill, Chesterfield UK. The objective was to validate the

functionality of the satellite tracking and communication

components of the system, in a representative railway

environment. A locomotive was fitted with the tracking

and communication units and several vehicles with

tracking units; these were formed into a train and driven

around the site to verify that the positions of all of the

vehicles could be continuously collected and

communicated to a server, to provide live tracking. This

logistical tracking and tracing of trains will enable their

location to be made available to emergency services,

when support is required.

newrail newsletter The centre for railway research at Newcastle University

Q2 2016

Testing of SPARTACUS at NewRail’s Barrow Hill Facility

newrail newsletter The centre for railway research at Newcastle University

Q2 2016

RailNewcastle Talks RailNewcastle held a week-long event “RailNewcastle

Talks 2016”, in June, on topics including Urban Rail

Transit & Light Rail; Rail Operations, Management &

Economics; ITS Telematics and Rail; Rail Safety,

Systems & Environment; and Innovation in Rail. As well

as Newcastle University, the event featured speakers

from a wide range of experts from universities in

Thailand, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Romania,

Slovakia, Croatia and Austria.

Rail Week NewRail has prepared 3 school visits and 1 open lecture

for the first “Rail Week”, a pioneering pan-industry

initiative to bring rail closer to schools, career advisors,

teachers and students. Details of all UK events are

available online at www.railweek.com

NewRail in ‘Le Figaro’ June saw the opening of the 57km long Gotthard Base

railway tunnel, in Switzerland – the world’s longest and

deepest traffic tunnel and the first flat, low-level route

through the Alps. Its main purpose is to increase local

transport capacity through the Alpine barrier, notably on

the Rotterdam-Basel-Genoa corridor and, more

particularly, to shift freight volumes from road to rail.

NewRail’s Roberto Palacin was interviewed by Le

Figaro about the benefits of the new construction. The

article can be found here

People Dr Marin Marinov has won a Newton Fund scholarship

(co-funded by CONFAP and the British Academies)

to work at the Federal University of Santa Catarina), on a

rail project: "A systematic method for designing rail

services for regional rail networks incorporating

knowledge transfer and application of new technologies

for both passengers and freight". The scholarship is for 3

months from July 2016.

Jonathan Powell is a finalist in RRUKA’s Best

Academic Presentation Competition at the Next

Generation Rail Conference, on 1 July 2016.

His presentation: ‘LEMUR - improving the capacity of

conventional railway systems’ will cover wheel/rail

adhesion, and showcase the work of his PhD. Jonathan

will present the development of a concept design,

describe multi-train simulation work carried out to

examine its effects on the capacity of the overall railway

system, evaluate potential improvements in customer

experience, and outline work with industry partners to

move the concept to prototype and implementation.

Maciej Tumasz, member of NewRail’s freight team

since 2012 working on successful research proposals and

projects such as BESTFACT and SMARSET, leaves us

at the end of June. Maciej will continue to partner with

NewRail via his consultancy company - Keep Movin’.

PhD student Anthony Gallagher was a prize winner at

Newcastle University’s Mechanical & Systems

Engineering Postgraduate Annual Research Conference

2016, where he presented his research on ground

penetrating radar.

RailExchange Dr Waressara Weerawat and Dr Phumin Kirawanich, of

Mahidol University, Thailand, visited Newrail in June to

discuss the new RailExchange project. Part of an

Industry Academia Partnership Programme,

RailExchange is based on an exchange of staff and

knowledge between the partners, and is co-funded by

Newton Funds. Both Thai guests, accompanied by Dr

Siradol Siridhara, stayed on for RailNewcastle Talks

2016, where they delivered presentations on their recent

rail projects related to metro passenger flow and EMC

measures.