InteGRail Announced
RRUK members the University of Loughborough and the University of Birmingham are partners in the new EU co-funded R & D project InteGRail (Intelligent Integration of Railways Systems).
InteGRail is a jointly funded EU & rail industry research Integrated Project (IP under the sixth Framework Programme), currently under negotiations and scheduled to commence at the beginning of 2005.
Objectives
The InteGRail project will create a holistic, coherent information system to integrate the major railway sub-systems and deliver a higher level of coordination and cooperation between the key railway processes. The objective is to achieve higher levels of performance of the railway system in terms of capacity, average speed and punctuality, safety and the optimised use of resources.
InteGRail will enable information to be shared within the Railway World to enable optimisation of decision making for improved performance. To achieve this, it will:
- Identify the information that is needed to be shared;
- Ensure that the right information can be obtained;
- Identify ways of using the information more effectively for maintenance optimisation;
- Identify ways of combining and using information effectively for management requirements;
- Ensure that the information can be transmitted effectively to the decision makers;
- Demonstrate that creating the right information and sharing it will enable performance improvement.
InteGRail will NOT replace existing systems. It will be used in conjunction with existing systems.
The project will build on results achieved by previous projects in the fourth and fifth FP (ROSIN, TrainCom, EuroMain) and will cooperate with parallel projects in FP6 (ModTrain).