On the right track.
Date: 2012-06-12
Institutions: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation
Subjects: cross-border cooperation, means of transport, new technology, rail network, rail transport, sustainable development

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On the right track

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When Europe’s rail pioneers created 

the first steam engines some two 
cent ur ies  ag o,  t hey  gave  lit t le 
thought to whether their inventions might be 
used in other countries: while their ingenuity 
helped transform travel, they never got round 
to introducing uniform rail technologies across 
the continent. 

The consequence is that today, although railway 
tracks crisscross the world, European trains are 
stubbornly limited in their range. Cross-border 
rail traffic is hindered by discrepancies between 
the national networks, with factors such as 
power supply, signalling, operational procedures 
and even track gauge varying from country to 
country. It means that with rare exceptions – for 
example, the Eurostar and Thalys trains – it is 
almost impossible for passengers to take the 
same train across national borders.

But research is helping overcome the obstacles. 
A €30.4 million project called MODTRAIN has 
helped develop standardised, interoperable 
components for tomorrow’s trains. MODTRAIN, 
which received a €16.9 million grant from the 
European Union, brought together 37 partners 
from 10 European countries, including three big 
railway operators (France’s SNCF, Germany’s 
Deutsche Bahn and Italy’s Trenitalia) as well 
as  industr y,  railway  research  centres  and 
universities. 

B y  st a ndar dising  t rain  component s  a nd 
interfaces, the project – which ran from 2004 
to 2008 – offered ways to improve performance 
and lower costs for both railway suppliers and 
operators. “It’s about making the trains work 
on  different  networks”,  says  Eric  Fontanel, 
who  was  MODTR AIN’s  chairman,  and  who 
is  also  the  General  Manager  of  UNIFE,  the 
professional association that brings together 
rail supply companies. “MODTRAIN helps set 
common standards and specifications so that 
a new generation of trains can work anywhere 
in Europe.”

Research and 
Innovation

 
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It ties in with broader European efforts to boost 
the  railway  sector,  including  the  European 
Commission’s 2011 Transport White Paper that 
says half of all journeys longer than 300 km 
should be by rail by 2050. At the same time, with 
EU governments opening up national railway 
markets to competition, there are now strong 
business and environmental reasons to ensure 
new trains can work anywhere in Europe. 

These  efforts  should  improve  rail  services 
and – with more and more high-speed trains 
– even help them compete with air transport. 
MODTRAIN thus supports both railway suppliers 
and  operator s  by  cut ting  manufac turing 
costs through economies of scale, boosting 
productivity of new rolling stock and improving 
reliability through service-proven components.

S o  w hat  ha s  M O DT R A I N  a c hieve d ?  T h e 
researchers redesigned everything from the 
traction  systems  to  the  controls,  and  even 
addressed interior design, as they produced a 
standardised set of components and interfaces. 
The safety aspects at the front of the train were 
improved, with a new shell to absorb energy in 
a crash and protect the driver. The team also 

redesigned the carriage to ensure passengers 
would be familiar with it, ensuring that the 
buttons  for  opening  and  closing  doors,  as 
well as calling for assistance or requesting an 
emergency stop, would be easily understood by 
anyone, anywhere in Europe. 

But Eric Fontanel says that beyond its technical 
achievements,  MODTRAIN  has  also  been  a 
precursor to other projects. “MODTRAIN set out 
new methods for collaboration”, he says. “It has 
been instrumental in building a cooperative spirit 
across the industry. We are now seeing a lot of 
common projects in the sector dealing with the 
principle of standardisation.”

The designs are currently being studied by 
Europe’s standardisation bodies, and it may still 
be years before the designs are systematically 
applied to all new European trains. However, 
the  research  from  the  MODTR AIN  project 
is already being referred to in new EU-wide 
regulations. The project could help fulfil the 
promise of those rail pioneers, by building a 
new generation of fully interoperable trains 
that can travel to any corner of Europe where 
there are train tracks.

MODTRAIN

Project Total Cost: €30 million

Project EU Contribution: €16.9 million

Partners from: Belgium, France, Italy, 
Germany, Switzerland, Finland, United 
Kingdom, Austria, Spain, Portugal

www.modtrain.com