S-CODE (Switch and Crossing Optimal Design and Evaluation) is a research, development and innovation project financed through the European Commission’s Horizon 2020, specifically within the Joint Undertaking called Shift2Rail.
The project, which Ferrovial Agroman participated in, focuses on track elements, a very specific element that also involves significant complexity and costs in construction, operation, and maintenance for railway construction work.
The general aim of S-CODE is investigating, developing, validating, and integrating radically new concepts of track elements that may have the potential to increase capacity, reliability, and security while lowering initial investment costs, as well as those for operation and maintenance.
To these ends, S-CODE developed radically new technological concepts that can be integrated in such a way as to be combined with the network and give rise to improved performance for track apparatuses based on new concepts of operation (for example, substituting super-fast needles or self-repairing needles)
The project has been divided into three phases:
- Phase 1: requirements and initial design – focusing on understanding critical requirements and restrictions, and developing modular architecture and disruptive operation systems that use technologies from other sectors;
- Phase 2: technical development – detailed modeling and simulations to identify the optimal settings that maximize the performance of track apparatuses;
- Phase 3: validation and evaluation – testing the design concepts and formal evaluation of its performance so that the overall design may continue its development.
International Consortium
The consortium in development through this work is made up of 8 members, including construction companies, research centers, universities, engineering firms, maintenance companies, and infrastructure operators:
- FERROVIAL AGROMAN SA (SPAIN)
- THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM (UNITED KINGDOM)
- DT – VÝHYBKÁRNA A STROJÍRNA, A.S. (CZECH REPUBLIC)
- RHOMBERG SERSA RAIL HOLDING GMBH (AUSTRIA)
- RAIL SAFETY AND STANDARDS BOARD LIMITED (UNITED KINGDOM)
- COMSA SAU (SPAIN)
- LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY (UNITED KINGDOM)
- VYSOKE UCENI TECHNICKE V BRNE (CZECH REPUBLIC)
- UNIVERZITA PARDUBICE (CZECH REPUBLIC)
More information on the S-CODE project webpage: http://www.s-code.info/
