The European rail supply industry can maintain its generational advantage and world-leading status over non-EU suppliers, but only if EU policymakers continue a cutting-edge public-private rail research programme, specifically in relation to Europe’s Rail successor.
UNIFE Director General Enno Wiebe outlined at Rail Forum Europe event on January 27, at the European Parliament what’s at stake for the industry and EU manufacturing, if the European Commission does not invest in a successor to Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking, while other nations like China heavily support their domestic industries.
An ideal future program would include investing EUR 3 billion from Horizon Europe/FP10 (Framework Programme for Research & Innovation for the period 2028-2034), and EUR 15 billion in the pre-deployment of key technologies developed from the European Competitiveness Fund.
Investing in Europe’s Rail successor “means the European rail supply industry can compete with the EU’s global rivals, who are focusing and investing in tech to pull ahead and achieve market supremacy. This is what Europe does best – policymakers working with private industry to ensure tech development that achieves strategic EU goals like growth, decarbonisation and strategic autonomy,” Enno Wiebe said.
Failure to do so would risk giving non-EU countries a global competitive advantage over European industry, at a time when Europe is supposed to be prioritising innovation, competitiveness and strategic autonomy.
Technologies developed in the last decade over two rail research programs such as FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) and DAC (Digital Automatic Coupling), can be deployed to help boost capacity and services on rail networks across the EU, if investment is assured.
The Future Railway Mobile Communication System is central to the upcoming planned rail signalling switch from 2G (GSM-R) to radio-based communication in Europe, while the Digital Automatic Coupling is one of the many technologies available to help the rail freight sector compete against the emissions-heavy air and truck freight sectors.
Share on:
