On December 4 a conference in Paris, France marked the mid-point of the EU-funded Sustrail research programme to ‘integrate vehicle and track innovations for a more sustainable freight railway’.
Sustrail is an EU funded research programme which aims to make rail freight more attractive to cargo owners. Among other considerations, the project looks at ‘high speed, low impact freight operations.’
Running to May 2015, Sustrail is bringing together a range of academic institutions, train operators, infrastructure managers and suppliers to examine the development of technologies, products and business models ‘to contribute to the rail freight system to allow it to regain position and market’.