Projects

Summary

To meet the growing demand for passenger and freight transport, FP2-R2DATO will leverage the advantages of digitalisation and automation to develop the next generation of ATC and provide capabilities for Digital and Automatic Train Operations (DATO), up to autonomous operation. The goal is to increase the capacity of existing railway networks. FP2-R2DATO is expected to deliver tangible results by 2025 in key areas: ATO, hybrid ETCS Level 3 and Level 3 with moving block, digital technologies (5G connectivity and a standardised onboard ICT platform), as well as guidelines and methods for fast and cost-effective deployment and migration of DATO across Europe.

Through these technical enhancements, FP2-R2DATO will contribute to achieving the objectives and impacts defined in the Europe’s Rail Master Plan and the Annual Work Programme, such as increased punctuality, reliability and productivity of staff, rolling stock and infrastructure. FP2-R2DATO will also consider potential risks, including public acceptance, synchronisation with ETCS deployment and possible legal issues.

Objectives

Europe’s mobility challenges for the coming decades, highlighted in the Europe’s Rail Master Plan and the Europe’s Rail Multi Annual Work Plan (MAWP), together with the urgent need to improve the backbone of the European railway system, have led the FP2-R2DATO consortium partners to join forces to propose innovative technologies, agile methods and deployment strategies. These solutions will address these challenges through the digitalisation and automation of the European railway system. Digital technologies will support the necessary transformation of transport, making mobility smarter, more efficient and more sustainable.

Rail digitalisation will make it possible to achieve the specific objectives set by the European Commission in 2020 for sustainable and smart mobility through R&I activities, such as:

• Shifting a substantial share of the 75% of freight carried by road to rail and inland waterways.
• Achieving carbon-neutral scheduled collective travel under 500 km within the EU by 2030.
• Doubling high-speed rail traffic by 2030 and tripling it by 2050.
• Increasing rail freight traffic by 50% by 2030 and doubling it by 2050.
• Achieving a fully operational, sustainable and intelligent multimodal Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) with high-speed connectivity by 2050, enhancing rail competitiveness and supporting Europe’s technological leadership.

In this context, railway digitalisation can improve environmental sustainability and cost efficiency, increase safety levels and user satisfaction and therefore support the modal shift towards rail.

This must be achieved through higher levels of automation, enhanced connectivity and fully digitalised operations. In this regard, the objective of FP2-R2DATO is to harness the significant opportunity offered by digitalisation and automation of railway operation, developing the next generation of ATC and providing scalable train automation up to GoA4 by 2030, in order to increase infrastructure capacity on existing railway networks. FP2-R2DATO is expected to deliver tangible results in 2025 in key enabling technologies, contributing to the transformation required for the European railway system. After extensive investigation of its potential, consortium partners are convinced that this technological leap will enable a more robust railway system with higher capacity, reduced response times and lower costs.