Expected Outcome:

To achieve the overall goal of this destination, five high-level capabilities have been identified, and the expected solutions should integrate the following:

Information sharing across the supply chain and TMS

The focus is on the ability to capture and share information securely across the entire rail system lifecycle, including operation, of rail assets. Furthermore, this area of action includes the secure exchange of information between the existing TMS^[1] and the Intelligent Asset Management System^[2] (IAMS).

Unmanned and non-invasive monitoring and inspections

Building upon the work delivered by FP3-IAM4RAIL^[3] in EU-RAIL and other research and innovation activities, the objective is to enhance the capability for automated and unmanned inspection and monitoring, evolving towards non-invasive and self-diagnostic systems with no or minimal service disruptions.

Advanced and holistic asset decisions

Building upon the work delivered by FP3-IAM4RAIL^[3] in EU-RAIL and other research and innovation, the focus is on the capability of making decisions in an advanced, automated, centralised, and holistic manner, considering the different assets, actors, standards, and regulations, especially combining track and rolling stock data. Furthermore, Digital Twins and enhanced visualisation techniques shall be exploited to support decision-making.

Advanced and holistic design and certification of assets (including virtual certification)

Building upon the work delivered by FP3-IAM4RAIL^[3] in EU-RAIL and other research and innovation, this outcome has a clear focus on the development of newly deployed components for the rail system with a LCC and system performance approach. Furthermore, in conjunction with the following capability, the use of additive manufacturing techniques shall be addressed, as well as the use of self-healing techniques and materials.

Remotely controlled and unmanned interventions

Building upon the work delivered by FP3-IAM4RAIL^[3] in EU-RAIL and other research and innovation, the objective is the development of capabilities for remote, automated, and unmanned intervention actions in rail systems. This shall make use of various technologies, including from other industries, such as robotics and wearable devices benefitting from state-of-the -art AI algorithms to support rail personnel, improve safety and increase the efficiency of intervention tasks.

The Flagship Project stemming from this topic should deliver, by 2028, innovative solutions to be demonstrated under the following high-level principles:

1. The integration of the complete value chain.
2. The exploitation of synergies between stakeholders at different levels, for instance, with respect to crossed monitoring.
3. The prioritisation of activities to achieve 2030 European objectives in rail mobility, exploiting EU-RAIL results.

The demonstrators for innovative solutions shall have several operational differences to be covered, including:

• Climate: The proposed solutions shall have to be able to take into account the wide variety of European climate types. (some cases can address extreme climate events)
• Line type: Demonstrators shall address high speed, conventional, regional, suburban and freight lines.
• Traffic type: Demonstrators shall cover passenger, freight and mixed lines.
• Asset type: Infrastructure and rolling stock shall be addressed jointly whenever possible considering all assets, including track, civil structures, earthworks, signalling, vehicles, track side, stations or power infrastructures.
• Planning level: demonstrators shall cover the Strategic Asset Management Plan level (SAMP), the Asset Management Plan level (AMP) and the Implementation of the Asset Management Plan level (IAMP).

The destination shall research, develop and deliver solutions that can be demonstrated by system approaches of the various developments targeting up to TRL 7/8 as European common integrated solutions. Due consideration should be given to certification and validation of the new technologies and processes as part of those demonstrators, that may be supported by several Use Cases:

1. Asset Management & TMS. The main aim of the demonstrator shall be to show the integration between the Intelligent Asset Management System (IAMS) and the Traffic Management System (TMS) enabling the sharing of data and optimising decisions using common metrics – TRL7 by 2028.
2. Asset Management & Rolling Stock. The main objective of this demonstrator shall be to present the monitoring of rolling stock (including on board and wayside technologies) leading to decisions and planning of interventions, and redirecting rolling stock to workshops to execute the (re)scheduled work both manually as well as by new technologies and solutions to conduct inspection tasks automatically – TRL7 by 2028.
3. Long Term Asset Management. Development of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) models for infrastructure. This demonstrator shall include cross-border infrastructure remaining useful-life analysis and space-time cross-analysis and visualisation – TRL7 by 2028.
4. Asset Management & Infrastructure. The objective shall be to integrate on field and on board systems with central platforms capable of managing Big Data to enable prescriptive interventions, minimising dangerous situations (as extreme climate events) and service disruptions during operation – TR7 by 2028.
5. Asset Management & Digital Twins. The focus shall be on design, maintenance, upgrade and renewal interventions driven by Digital Twins for the optimisation of processes, maintenance planning and involved logistics. This shall enforce the use of BIM to standardise system configuration and AI tools to execute simulations and predictions. The Digital Twin demonstrator shall include visualisation, prediction and simulation – TRL7 by 2028.
6. Design & Manufacturing. This demonstrator shall be the showcase of eco-friendly production of resilient assets supported by new fabrication techniques such as additive manufacturing (focussed on infrastructure assets) – TRL6/7 by 2028
7. Robotics & Interventions. The focus of this demonstrator shall be the showcase of high-tech automated execution solutions for construction and interventions supported by robotics and wearables, among other devices, building a safer and more automated railway environment – TRL6/7 by 2028

Each of these high-level demonstrators shall be further detailed and filled with specific, tangible and suitable use cases illustrating the impact of the technologies in concrete solutions as well as their reproducibility at EU scale. The choice of these use cases shall be based on sound business cases supported by a wide range of stakeholders possibly covering a wide range of assets proofing the versatility of the technologies, such as:

• Physical infrastructure: track, civil structures, earthworks, signalling, track side, stations or power infrastructures.
• Rolling stock: passenger service, freight and light/urban vehicles.

The business cases shall illustrate that major and widely recognised pain points are addressed ensuring that the wide deployment of the outcomes will contribute to a significant improvement in cost reduction, direct cost or LCC and/or reliability of the system or work conditions.

Where an opportunity would materialize to achieve more aggregated demonstrators, especially linking demonstrators in the area of asset management, in business cases that will link digital twins, TMS and asset management for rolling stock and/or infrastructure, this should be pursued.

At least one of the proposed Use Case shall use the Harmonised Diagnostic Data Interface^[7] (specification provided by SP Task 5) and demonstrate its applicability and benefit for asset monitoring.

The action to be funded under this Destination also needs to provide the following necessary elements for the demonstrations under the action to be funded under the Destination 1 – Network management planning and control & Mobility Management in a multimodal environment to be delivered for 2028 demonstrations: Technical enabler 1 as described under the Scope section of this Destination. In addition of the above, the proposal shall cover important preparatory works needs to be launched for the future set of FA1 demonstration foreseen in the Multi- annual Work programme in view of the evolutions of the solutions, linked with the same enabler at higher TRL.

Scope:

The Flagship Project stemming from this topic shall develop under the following capabilities the enablers and any other which may contribute to deliver the aforementioned expected outcome with the associated maturity level foreseen (up to – depending of the Use Case):

Capability for Information sharing across the supply chain and TMS

Enabler 1: Scalable information platform to integrate and exchange information (e.g., asset health, maintenance planning, fleet operation, etc.) across the supply chain and TMS, requiring necessary management and sharing agreements between the involved actors at TRL7 in 2028, and amongst others:

• secure standardised interfaces, methods, and processes for different data exchange (e.g., inspection devices to Asset Management Platform, etc.) at TRL7 in 2028, and

Capability for Unmanned and non-invasive monitoring and inspections

Enabler 2: Improved (in terms of cost reduction and/or better accuracy) asset diagnostic and inspection systems, as well as advanced, context aware, unmanned automated monitoring and inspections solutions at TRL7 in 2028, and amongst others:

• AI and ML solutions for automated monitoring and inspections, and data fusion algorithms to combine information provided by different inspection techniques to better determine the health status of the assets at TRL7 in 2028;
• Development of context awareness techniques for unmanned interventions at TRL 7 in 2028;
• Development of synchronization algorithms for inspection data stamping in terms of accurate position and time at TRL7 in 2028;

Capability for Advanced and holistic asset decisions

Enabler4: New methodologies and technologies to leverage advanced and holistic asset decisions during the span of their life cycle at TRL7/8 in 2028, based on:

• probabilistic models for component failure to integrate cost of potential hazard risks and cost of potential unavailability in the asset maintenance decision strategy, at TRL7 in 2028
• Harmonisation of railway asset LCC determination, at TRL7 in 2028
• Operational and IoT data with additional rail system information and knowledge as well as technologies to enable cooperative diagnostic between assets at TRL8/9 in 2028
• AI-based hybrid Decision Support based on predictive and prescriptive data analytics and Machine Learning algorithms for anomaly detection and failure prediction with optimised human-AI interactions at TRL7 in 2028

Enabler 5: Digital Twins integrated with BIM, GIS tools, and Virtual and Augmented Reality to enable agile visualization for different stakeholders of asset health status (historical, current, and forecasted) in various use cases at TRL 7 in 2028.

Capability for Advanced and holistic design and certification of assets

Enabler 6: Advanced and holistic design and certification of assets, at TRL 6/8 in 2025, based on:

• New ethical-by-design materials and/or innovative materials and processes for additive manufacturing, with advanced LCC characteristics, at TRL 6 in 2028
• Advanced automated certification techniques (including virtual certification), at TRL7 in 2028
• Energy scavenging approaches for self-supporting monitoring solutions, at TRL 6 in 2028

Capability for Remotely controlled, unmanned and metadata-assisted interventions

Enabler 7: Development of remotely controlled, unmanned and metadata-assisted interventions in construction, maintenance, and renewal operations, based on:

• non-invasive or collaborative unmanned robotic actuators and wearables as well as advanced unmanned robotic vehicles with AI and ML algorithms for automated robotic interventions, at TRL7 in 2028.
• additive manufacturing techniques and validation standards for manufacturing and repairing assets at TRL 6/7 in 2028.

Developments on all those enablers should also cover important preparatory works with higher TRL for the future set of demonstration foreseen in the Multi- annual Work programme in view of the evolutions of the solutions.

For Research & innovation and demonstrations activities (within the action) making use of data models related to the interoperability or safety of the rail system, those data models should be aligned with the ERA Ontology^[8]. This ontology defines the conceptual framework and the specific terms and relationships for the interoperability or safety of the rail system in the EU that shall be used or where relevant extended. This includes the reuse of the ERA ontology with its semantic artifacts (shacl rules, skos ..) and in cases where it is not sufficient, extensions should be proposed to maintain semantic consistency and interoperability across systems. Those extensions proposals should cover the processes to validate extension to the ERA Ontology with compliant datasets and related competency questions and linked SPARQL queries based on interoperability testbed validation tools (Interoperability Test Bed Guides — ITB Guides^[9]). Corresponding documentation should also include any mappings or transformations considered in the Research & Innovation activities and any assumptions made.

Key Performance Indicators

The action shall actively contribute to measure and monitor the specific quantitative KPIs defined in the Destination description above, including its contribution to the Europe’s Rail Master Plan impacts. Outcomes are to be delivered at a calendar annual basis by each year end

Collaboration work required with other FAs

The action to be funded under Destination 3 shall foresee a common activity/task related to the use case developments relevant to the actions to be funded under Destination 1, 2 and 5 (not limited to).

It is expected that the Flagship Project stemming from this topic will use the EU-RAIL System Pillar Cybersecurity specifications ^[10], provide feedback to the Destination 1 Workstream 2 covering Cybersecurity and foresee adequate structure and resources for these activities.

Interaction with the System Pillar

The System Pillar aims to guide, support and secure the work of the Innovation Pillar (i.e. to ensure that research is targeted on commonly agreed and shared customer requirements and operational needs, compatible and aligned to the system architecture), and the Innovation Pillar will impact the scope of the System Pillar where new technologies or processes mean that innovations can drive a change in approach, as well as delivering detailed specifications and requirements. The interaction with the System Pillar activities on the Harmonised Diagnostics should receive particular attention.

In this respect, the necessary resources would have to be dedicated to areas linked to System Pillar conceptual and architecture works – particularly addressing specification development (the interaction is illustrated in the System Pillar – Innovation Pillar interaction note (Annex VI of this Work Programme). The alignment of the activities will primarily take place during the Grant Preparation Phase and ramp up phase of the awarded proposal, and there will be continued interaction through the life of the project.

The EU-RAIL System Pillar is producing specifications and other relevant documents ^[11]. In general the documents applicable to the Destination 3 should be used. If it is considered documents are not applicable, the proposals shall explain the reason(s) for not using them (to note the application of the documents may still be required by EU-RAIL). During the action to be funded under this Destination, there may be updating of the documents, including based on feedback from application in technical enablers and demonstrators. Relevant feedback should be provided on a regular basis to EU-RAIL and the System Pillar.

The action shall actively contribute to the update of the EU-Rail Standardisation and TSIs input plan (STIP) wherever relevant. Similarly, the action shall contribute to the development and implementation of EU policy and legislation including Technical Specifications for Interoperability and Common Safety Methods, as well as to publications of the System Pillar.

Gender dimension

In this topic the integration of the gender dimension (sex and gender analysis) in research and innovation content is not a mandatory requirement.

Other

It is expected that the Flagship Project stemming from this topic:

• will involve sufficient European geographical representation of academia, and ensure that all needed expertise for the described activities reflects the Special skills and/or capabilities expected from the Applicant(s) as described in the specific topic conditions.
• will be compliant with the EU Data Policy 2020 and associated legal instruments. This requires adherence to EU framework, including but not limited to the Open Data Directive (EU) 2019/1024 and associated implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 on high-value data sets, the Data Governance Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/868), the Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854), and the Interoperable Europe Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/903). Ensuring compliance involves verifying that data management, processing and sharing comply with applicable EU framework.

[1] Results from Shift2Rail activities should be taken into account, see public deliverables of S2R TD2.9 (TMS) available here: WP6 deliverables: https://projects.shift2rail.org/s2r_ip2_n.aspx?p=X2RAIL-2

[2] Results from Shift2Rail activities should be taken into account, see public deliverable of S2R TD3.6, TD3.7 and TD3.8 (IAMS) available here: https://projects.shift2rail.org/download.aspx?id=1fc574ec-1a28-4199-b77b-402d352d62f0 + EU-RAIL FP3-IAM4RAIL Deliverable 2.7 https://rail-research.europa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/D2.7.pdf

[3] EU-RAIL FP3-IAM4RAIL Deliverable 2.7 https://rail-research.europa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/D2.7.pdf

[4] EU-RAIL FP3-IAM4RAIL Deliverable 2.7 https://rail-research.europa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/D2.7.pdf

[5] EU-RAIL FP3-IAM4RAIL Deliverable 2.7 https://rail-research.europa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/D2.7.pdf

[6] EU-RAIL FP3-IAM4RAIL Deliverable 2.7 https://rail-research.europa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/D2.7.pdf

[7] https://rail-research.europa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/20241218_HERD_Report_SP_Website.pdf

[8] https://github.com/Interoperable-data/ERA-Ontology-3.1.0

[9] https://www.itb.ec.europa.eu/docs/guides/latest/overview/index.html

[10] https://rail-research.europa.eu/horizontal-tasks/

[11] https://rail-research.europa.eu/v1-release/