INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRICAL SYSTEM COMPATIBILITY AND INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEMS ON THE EUROPEAN RAILWAY NETWORK

Interoperability between all subsystems of a rail network is a prerequisite for reliable and safe rail transport within and across national borders. The electrical compatibility of new railway vehicles with the existing power supply, signaling and vehicles, has more recently been found to be a major obstacle to reach this goal. Electrical System Compatibility for Advanced Rail Vehicles (ESCARV) is a RTD project cofinanced by the European Commission and the Swiss Government under the fourth Framework Program to identify main barriers and propose solutions. Railway manufacturers, operators, and research centers cooperate in ESCARV to establish a modeling framework of the complete railway system, enabling to predict and avoid interoperability problems before putting a system into operation, and to produce a set of design recommendations for new vehicles as well as input to new or updated European norms. In particular, the User Group Task Force was set to improve and ensure the dissemination of the ESCARV approach and results to a wide set of users (railway network and operator companies, and manufacturers not involved in the project partnership), establishing the ESCARV User Group. This paper shows the User Group objectives and introduces the Info Bank, the tool for sharing and achieving ESC knowledge.