Despite a similar process has been already provided for the rolling stock the railway infrastructure is a more complex system where in the last years a “silent” revolution has been performed in order to face the high performances of trains (high speed trains), to attract the freight transport, to reduce the maintenance and operational costs, to comply with the local, regional regulation in terms of environmental impact.

To avoid that this revolution will create a great unbalance among regions and to support the know-how and best practices transfer it is important to assess by a consensus process at European level the following items:

• the current state of environmental performance within the railway sector, and to highlight the criticalities to become effective and practical for the internal Environmental Management system implemented by railway companies and suppliers;
• the infrastructure functional subsystems and interfaces from the environment point of view;
• balance of goods in terms of material flow, environmental key performance indicators EKPIs and relevant ranking.

Finally, as result of the three steps, the specification for the environmental part of a sustainability management system is provided and disseminated to end users (railway infrastructure managers and international organisations), to suppliers and academia (through EURNEX poles of excellence).

Other two work packages related to the management and the communication/dissemination are included in order to guarantee and to monitor the quality and effectiveness of the coordination mechanism.

InfraGuiDer has Nitel as coordinator, in the person of Dr. Marina Fracchia, and involves totally 11 partners, four railways (Network Rail, CFR S.A, Banverket and Wienen Linien), one consultant eco2win, one manufacturer BBRail Italy, and finally two universities (Birmingham and Vienna).

InfraGuidER fits with SST-2007-1.2-01 The Greening of transport-specific industrial processes.

Objective: Analysis of risk in terms of physical infrastructure and technological safety with specific attention paid to:

1. Stations.
2. Running lines.
3. Tunnels and Viaducts.
4. Command and Control Posts.
5. Technological Areas.
6. Telecommunications Infrastructure.

Phase 1 Analysis of the State of the Art

Research on the regulations, systems and laws existing in Italy, European countries, and the world regarding transportation.

Phase 2 Instruments – Methodologies

Implementation of an IT instrument for the evaluation of the vulnerability of a system and cost/benefit analysis of security apparatuses.

Phase 3 – Applications – Project Output

Proposal of a group of rules for the definition of regulatory guidlines for rail security.

NITEL – RFI – ANSALDO STS – ELSAG – SCIRO – SELEX SISTEMI

EURNEX members include 63 universities and research centres from 18 EU Member States and Russia, as well as key railway associations, such as UIC, UITP, and UNIFE.

NITEL is one of the partners in EURNEX and leader of the Pole of Excellence “Environment and Energy Efficiency”.

This project, funded by Italian government and European Structural Funds, lead by CNR, is devoted to perform a detailed analysis of technical innovative solutions to be introduced to drive bow thrusters and stabilizing fin or rudder replacing the conventional oleo dynamic solutions.

NITEL will define and compare possible innovative electrical drives, including torque motors, to be directly connected to the mechanical loads. Fincantieri CNR and some SMEs will develop the prototype and will perform the laboratory tests and sea trials.

Within this call of FP6, the railway industry elaborates the Railenergy Integrated Research Project to develop a holistic framework approach, new concepts and integrated solutions to improve energy efficiency in the railway domain under specific technical, operational, political and socio-economic constraints.

The overall objective of Railenergy is to cut the energy consumption within an optimised railway system thus contributing to a reduction in the life cycle costs of railway operation and of CO2 emissions per seat/kilometre or tonne/kilometre. The project target is to achieve a 6% reduction in the specific energy consumption of the rail system by 2020, assuming that traffic volumes double in comparison with current figures.

Within the time frame of 48 Months of project duration, the 28 consortium partners will deliver:

• Relevant baseline figures and scenarios for selected reference systems
• A system-based concept for modelling energy consumption
• A common and standardised methodology to determine energy consumption by rail sub-systems and components in the development and procurement phases
• An integrated simulation tool for energy consumption and LCC
• An integrated railway energy efficiency management approach & decision support tool
• Strategic energy efficiency targets for rolling stock, infrastructure and traffic management
• An Energy Management Module which could provide the operator with a diagnostic of their complete installation
• New validated energy efficiency-oriented railway technologies for trackside and on-board sub-systems and equipment, developed in compliance with the new integrated approach
• Refined best practices for Railway Operators and Infrastructure Managers
• Strategies for incentives, pricing, and policies

NITEL is involved in this project as Partner for “energy model” related to track side system and the traction drives.

Sala dei Capitani – Palazzo San Giorgio
Genova, 25 ottobre 2007
Ore 09.00

Objects

The Councillorship to Infrastructures, Transports, Ports, Logistics of the Liguria Region, in collaboration with IIC – International Institute of the Communications, University of the Studies of Genoa and Nitel, recognized the important impact that the activation of organic plans of maintenance of the infrastructural net can have on the emergency of the transports and the control of the costs of maintenance of infrastructures, sponsors the convention “programmed Maintenance of infrastructures and emergency” of which Archimedes, Datasiel and Sciro are made promoters.

Objective of the convention is the sharing of information on the state of the art and the operating strategies adopted from Public Administration, Private companies, Highway Agencies Managers, Concessionaires and Local Agencies in order to program maintenance operations on transport infrastructures.

Main topics

The convention will concern on the following arguments:

• programmed maintenance,
• asset management,
• implementation of bridge management system,
• appraisal of performance,
• operating strategies of maintenance,
• inspecting methodologies,
• methodologies of appraisal of the degradation,
• echnical of restoration,
• repair and reinforcement structural,
• appraisal of the emergency and the reliability,
• analysis of statistical data to the ends of the emergency.

Roma – Sala delle Colonne, 10 maggio 2007

From the public initiative “Italy and the gap in the Logistics, a possible recovery: as?” organized by NITEL to Rome the 25/01 u.s. a series of problem list emerges open to whose solution political power seems not to be able to furnish answers.The NITEL with the twenty Universities that gather (in whose Scientific Suggestion they are present the Offices of the university and the Search, of the Infrastructures, of the Transports, of the Economic Development, of the Insides, of the Economy and of the Department of Internal Revenue, of the Environment and of the Guardianship of the Territory and the Sea, of the defense) and the Committee of address constituted by RFI Railroads of the State, Highways, Anas, Finmeccanica, Mail Italian, they intend to formulate some operational proposals with the purpose to do yes that our Country doesn’t lose the consequential benefits from the wave of bump that the east is introducing to the world and translatable economy with the increase than at least him 1% of our PIL. Of this scenery segnatamente makes China it departs with which has been founded a joined Government Committee that has predisposed and compiled the MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) that in date November 13 th 2006 has been undersigned at the respective Ministers of Foreign Affairs Them Zhaoxing and Of Alema. Now, for the Italian part, it is necessary to give some concrete signals for the realization of the different points among which there is that related to the ” Harbors and the Logistics “.

The proposal of the university motivates the why of the individualization of a meaningful sovra-regional area with the function of logistic base. Besides points out the forms and the necessary juridical tools so that the initiative passes from proposal to done concrete.

The NITEL, in the compartment of the logistics with semestral lilt monitora the state of advancement of the politics and the established initiatives, doing part of the project “System Logistic Italy.”

Genova -Villa Cambiaso, 30 marzo 2007

The facts of the 11 september in USA, March 2004 to Madrid and July 2005 to London, have changed in order always to the perception of the emergency, rendering it a primary requirement for the quality of the life: the field of the transports is engaged to satisfy these requests in order to guarantee the operation of a fundamental field in the modern society.

The debate the management of security and safety, understandings one like dangers deriving from fraudulent actions and the other leave from these presupposed in order to carry out the inherent topics as incidents provoke from technical causes or human errors to you.

A variety of aspects that however for everyone of we represents a thread convergent conductor in an only wait: more emergency. It will come illustrated the evolution of the security in the transports and as this comes at this point recognized like factor of social alarm, while the topic of the safety will be faced a general character second, framing it in the within of statistics of incidentally and the division between traffic commodities and passengers.

Emblematic they are the numbers that regard the field of the transport and that better they evidence the connected importance of the thematic ones to it: in old Europe “to 15″ ten million persons are occupied in this field, producing beyond 10% of the PIL total with an impact on the equal average to 12% of the total.
Presenting development issues already addressed in the conference in November 2004, aims to foster a debate on the issues of security increasingly to the fore.

Roma – Residenza di Ripetta, 25 gennaio 2007

The Italian Logistics & Transportation (L&T) sector is a 190 Billion Euros yearly sales business and represents about 13% of the total European L&T business (being Germany’s L&T 30% of the total and France’s L&T 20% of the total) and accounts for about 11-12% of Italy’s GDP.
As Italy’s L&T sector is smaller in percentage terms than it should be, the competitiveness of the whole country’s economic activities suffers and pays a high price for the inadequacy of the country’s strategic L&T sector versus other EU countries.
The NITEL consortium, which groups 20 Universities and a strategic committee composed by the most important Italian transportation network systems such as Italian Rail Network (RFI), Italian Toll Motorways (Autostrade S.p.A.), Italian Road Network (Anas S.p.A.) and key technical transportation solution suppliers such as the transportation arm of Finmeccanica S.p.A. have the aim of supplying answers on how to bridge the gap of the Italian L&T sector versus other EU countries and help enhance Italy’s competitiveness.
The aim of the conference is to identify the choices that each L&T subsector can undertake in order to achieve the required competitiveness targets which brings into the full picture not only the network managers (for example RFI for the rail network) but also strategic items such as the key question of the security and competitiveness of energy supplies for the transportation sector (diesel fuel, natural gas, biofuels and other energy conversion processes) and virtual infrastructures.
During the conference the audience will be presented with short and medium term scenarios inclusive of figures related to impacts in terms of GDP growth, competitiveness enhancements, employment growth and environmental benefits ascribable to project realizations.
Conclusions will be drawn by top level representatives of the Italian government involved in decision making affecting this key economic sector, as we believe their involvement is key for the success of giving L&T the right importance and place that the sector deserves among the actions that Italy needs to pursue vigorously in order to recover competitiveness and enhance environmental quality.

Roma – Auditorium della Tecnica, 18/19 novembre 2004

Presentation of the meeting

The events on 11th September in U.S.A. and on 11th March in Spain have definitely changed the perception of “security”, making it an essential need for the quality of life: the field of transport is engaged to acknowledge these issues in order to assure the running of a basic sector in modern society.
The meeting stems from these assumptions for developing the themes of security and safety, the former meant as incidents caused by intentional offences and the latter as incidents induced by technical causes or human failures; in both cases they represent for all of us a guiding thread conveying in a single expectation: more safety and security.
The evolution of security in transport and how it is now perceived as an item of social alarm will be illustrated, whereas the theme of safety will be faced according to a general view, fitting it in a statistical incidence and splitted into the modal division of passengers and goods.
The figures related to the sector of transport are emblematic and point out the importance of the linked issues: in “Old Europe of 15 Members”, 10 millions persons are employed in this field, producing more than the 10 % of PIL, with a medial impact of about 12%.
Both themes will develop the peculiarities of all the aspects of railway, road, maritime, fly and intermodal transport, framed in each sectorial provisions and referred to their specific technological means of support through technical reports and round tables, the participants of which are main national and international personalities.