Rail 4 Earth FP4: Sustainable Rail Systems
The Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (ERJU) coordinates research and innovation across the European railway sector. Within this framework, Rail4EARTH aims to improve the sustainability performance of railways, strengthening rail as a more resilient, attractive, and climate-friendly mode of transport. In doing so, the project contributes to the objective of a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 through the development of sustainable rail systems. The project covers a broad range of railway applications, including rolling stock, infrastructure, stations, and related subsystems such as traction, bogies, brakes, energy storage systems, and HVAC.
Consortium Co-Design of a European Railway Sector Eco-Label
Work package 4 of Rail4Earth focuses on the development of a sector-wide business-to-business eco-label that aims to enable more sustainable transport by pushing suppliers to improve, sharing and communicating results, and tracking improvements over time. In this project, the AMME chair is supporting a consortium of European railway organisations in the co-design of such a label, following a Design Science Research (DSR) approach.
Within this 4-year design research project, we facilitate co-creation and support decision-making in a collaborative consortium of manufacturers, operators, and infrastructure managers from different European countries. This work not only contributes to the development of a novel B2B eco-label for the sector, but also provides unique insights and methods for facilitating co-design in complex, international engineering management contexts.
Bio-based Materials for Railways for the rail sector
Within Work Package 4, this task plays a central role in advancing circularity-oriented solutions for the railway sector. It focuses on the development and assessment of approaches aimed at reducing lifecycle environmental impacts and supporting the implementation of circular economy principles across railway applications. Specifically, it contributes to the identification and evaluation of bio-based material solutions for the railway sector. In this context, the AMME team supported the exploration of renewable and low-embodied-carbon materials for railway rolling stock and infrastructure. This work also contributes to the development of a framework for identifying and assessing suitable bio-based materials, while highlighting opportunities, barriers, and pathways for their future adoption across the rail sector. For more information, please refer to the following infographic.
UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE TEAM
