The European railway industry faces great challenges in need for increased network capacity as the result of higher customer demands. Ageing infrastructure assets require efficient and sustainable interventions to maintain and improve current levels of performance. To meet these demands and increase the operational performance of the railway infrastructure assets, innovation is needed to enable a step-change in reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS) and also to optimise asset capital and Life Cycle Cost (LCC).

IN2TRACK3 addresses the topic of “Research into optimised and future railway Infrastructure” of the 2020 Horizon 2020 SHIFT2RAIL call for proposals for the Joint Undertaking Members. The project is a continuation of IN2TRACK and IN2TRACK2 and aims to further develop and demonstrate research results and innovations developed under the two previous projects. IN2TRACK3 will develop physical as well as digital technology and methodology demonstrators for the Track, Switches & Crossings and Bridge & Tunnel assets. The project is aligned to the SHIFT2RAIL overall aims to reduce lifecycle costs, improve reliability and punctuality, increase capacity, enhance interoperability and improve the customer experience.

The project structure is designed around five technical work packages, aiming at both improving the operational performance of existing infrastructure assets and providing radical new system solutions delivering a step-change in performance, improving methods and repair techniques, improve quality, reduce costs and extend the service life of assets and structures. The project is led by Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Administration Agency, the consortium consists of 27 expert partners originating from 11 European countries and the partners involved are infrastructure managers, research partners, technology developers and industry partners. IN2TRACK3 will further develop and demonstrate a number of innovative solutions based upon the two previous projects and the work will build upon already ongoing mutually beneficial collaboration, established communication paths and a considerable amount of mutual trust built upon years of collaboration in international project environments.

The overall IN2TRACK3 objective is to develop technology and technology demonstrators for the track, switches and crossings (S&C), bridge and tunnel assets. IN2TRACK3 presents the objectives and impacts of five Technology Demonstrators (TDs) of the Shift2Rail Innovation Programme 3 (IP3) and details the methodology/process that will be implemented to deliver those five TDs. The objectives are divided into enhancements to existing track, switches and crossings; next generation track, switches and crossings; and enhanced performance of tunnel and bridges.