Title: “TESYS RAIL - Tecniche E Strumenti per Incrementare la Sostenibilità ambientale dei sistemi di trasporto ferroviari” http://www.tesysrail.it/

Partners: RFI, THALES ITALIA, ANSALDO STS, ATS 17 PMI (PROJECT, ALEPH, ARGOS ENGINEERING, ART, CALAMAI E AGRESTI, CHP, ECM, ELFI, ENGINSOFT, NETSENS, NUOVA IT, SITAEL, STERN PROGETTI, THINK LAND, TE.SI.FER., V.D.S., VVN). UNIVERSITÁ DI FIRENZE, UNIVERSITA di NAPOLI “Federico II”, POLITECNICO di MILANO
 
Subcontractors: ANSALDOBREDA, CNR DI PISA, UNIVERSITÁ DI PISA, SCUOLA DI STUDI SUPERIORI E PERFEZIONAMENTO SANT’ANNA DI PISA

Summary:
The purpose of the project is to reduce the environmental impact of a railway system, improving its sensibility both on a vehicle and on an infrastructure point of view. This will also be done reducing the environmental impact of all the subsystem components. The sensitivity of public opinion towards environmental problems increases constantly and it is reflected also on B2B world, where the interest for environmental-friendly products increases thanks to the new laws promulgated by national and European government. The scope of the proposed activities is to develop project tools and to find out new technologies, which are necessary to gain the above mentioned goal. For this purpose, the project proposal is intended to reach the following objectives:

• Railway lines with longer lifetime, increased efficient and increased availability, thanks to new tools and methods developed for an easier maintenance and a reduced degradation;
• Design of low environmental-impact components, trying to make them as much recyclable as possible (i.e. innovative electrical apparatus);
• Study and Definition of eco design procedures to be applied in the different stages of the vehicle design in order to minimize the vehicle impact over the environment;
• Design of components for disassembling, in order to facilitate the maintenance and the disposal of the product, increase its shelf-life and improve the possibility of updating the product;
• Produce a simulation tool to evaluate the environmental impact during the whole lifecycle of the product, starting from its design phase, defining specific indicators to evaluate economic and environmental impact of the products and processes to realize the final product;
• Definition of integrated techniques to manage the energy supply systems, minimizing the energy consumption and the environmental impact of the materials used for the different components;
• Optimization of the efficiency and performance of the main onboard subsystems, particularly speaking the ones with a high environmental impact, both onboard and on the ground.

 
Even if the main purpose of the project is to reduce the environmental impact and to improve the train, it is easy to see that also improvements of the comfort and safety will be obtained.
The project is systemic and involves the National railway infrastructure manager, some of the most important railway company operating in Italy, a partnership of SMEs active on the supply of subcomponents and services for the railway sector and some of the main Italian universities with a great experience on the field of the project. Some of the main Italian research institutes, having great international experience both in the research and in the industrial sector, are also involved in the partnership.