Over the past decades, transportation has become more energy efficient. However, the EU transport sector still depends on oil and oil products for 96% of its energy needs. EU’s transport strategy aims at significantly reducing the oil dependency of transport, but the major challenge consists in increasing the energy efficiency without compromising mobility. Practically, the transport sector has to use less and cleaner energy. Currently, railway transport remains the answer to all these challenges.
The industry is faced with challenges as new types of vehicles have to appear, permitting the transport of a large number of passengers with the help of the most efficient transport modes. This leads to technological innovation which aims to improve the performance of vehicles in terms of energy-efficiency.
Rolling stock manufacturers integrate their energy efficiency policies in their strategy for the development of new types of vehicles, thus managing to control the environmental impact. The companies’ production system anticipates energy performance by developing new more energy efficient solutions and delivering sustainable products using eco-design methods during the engineering process.
“The energy efficiency of the rail vehicles is important both for the environment and for transport operators this determining manufacturing companies to develop new technologies. Thus, we are conducting researches on the use of eco-friendly materials resulted from renewable resources”, declared François Lacôte, Senior Vice President and Technical Advisor Alstom Transport.
The energy efficiency of a railway vehicles depends on the weight of trains, especially that of the underframe, to the development of the braking systems and the production of subsystems, the efficiency being considered as early as the train design phase, by bringing together all aspects related to the life expectancy of the products through energy efficiency research and development programmes. “We have established the way in which each sub-system impacts on the efficiency of a train. Solutions vary from a lighter vehicle, reduced maintenance for bogies, and intelligent wear to improving aerodynamic performance which contributes to lower consumption”, explain Bombardier’s representatives.
Solutions contributing to improved energy efficiency are based on the capture and store of energy for increasing the performance of ultracapacitors by successfully using the energy recovered by the braking system when trains need energy.
“The development of propulsion technologies manages to reduce energy consumption, the regenerative concept being extremely important. The electro-dynamic braking system slows down the vehicle whenever necessary and manages to reduce fine particle emissions and consumed energy. Low operation costs and reduced energy consumption bring are the operator’s advantages, explained Dipl. Eng. Martin Steuger, Head of Velaro platform development, Siemens Mobility Division, Erlangen.
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