New railway station concept for green and socially inclusive smart cities

The project stemming from this topic should develop a shared methodology for transforming existing stations or designing new ones into socio-technical systems operating as city’s greening engines for the surrounding environment, and new urban hubs aggregating multiple services for the users and its citizens. In this respect, the project will integrate and contribute to the EU-Rail Multi-Annual Work Programme – Flagship Area 4 – A Sustainable and Green Rail System as well as to the European Union New EU Urban Mobility Framework^[1].

The R&I work should contribute to:

• The achievement of a climate-neutral society,
• The implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (sustainable, smart and inclusive cities, transport and infrastructure, resources management, climate mitigation and adaptation, reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases, health, environmental protection and biodiversity regeneration, sustainable land use, and gender equality),
• Railway stations to become connectivity hubs connect for multimodal mobility services, for passengers and goods, and the rest of the urban environment,
• Railway Stations will be inclusive and foster equal access to public transport for all
• Railway stations to become the new urban vital centre, fostering collaborative and circular economy, and social services,
• Ability to exploit the potential of railway stations as installations of advanced engineering solutions for sustainable solutions (stations as: infrastructure networks, multimodal freight terminals, telecommunications nodes, energy hubs, water distribution and waste disposal, etc),
• Ability to respond to health crises, natural disasters and resilience considering the modularity aspects that would make feasible to readapt or convert spaces to different typologies according to the needs,
• Bring together station managers, infrastructure managers and railway operators, local administrations, public and private transport operators, urban and logistic planners, new mobility service /delivery providers, Union institutions, , passengers and citizens’ representative bodies, NGOs, and research institutions, but also other rail and non-rail (e.g. energy supplier/operator) industry, SMEs and start-ups as needed, around a common plan targeted to the urban environment surrounding while providing an institutional framework to the model that will be created,
• The adoption of a EU wide model for the new railway stations, taking into account the local ad regional contexts, that should help local and national administrations achieving the following objectives:
  • Foster territorial cohesion through public transport and alternative mobility solutions
  • Decarbonise mobility and urban energy sources,
  • Implementation of the circular economy principles within the businesses and services operated in the station,
  • Promotion of new partnerships, especially between public administrations, large industrial groups, local institutions and SMEs while integrating citizens and collaborative small-sized solutions into the overall planning and policy-making process.

The project stemming from this topic shall contribute to deliver the expected outcomes and the R&I work includes:

• The development of analytical tools that will support the methodology for evaluating the costs and benefits of broadening the original purpose and functions of a railway station in the context of urban planning and mobility (from a simple departure/arrival point to a dense node of mobility, economic and social activities) as well as smart grids and energy performance (and any relevant station transformation),
• The definition of sustainability indicators (including social, economic environmental and resiliency dimensions) guiding the methodology, taking into account the existing Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators^[2].
• The definition of a common European-wide framework or methodology that, while enabling a sufficient latitude to accommodate specific local conditions or prevailing opportunities, may still guarantee opportunities to scale up the “model” to applicability across the EU. The requested methodology for enhancing the performance of new/existing stations integrated in smart cities should cover, among the other expected outcomes described above, particularly aspects related to the energy behaviour (stations as energy hubs integrated in the smart grids and, as such, improving the energy performance of the smart city), aspects related to the mobility and urban planning, for both passengers and goods, as well as aspects related to users’ experience.
• The implementation of at least four (4) specific pilot “Living Labs” (in four different Member States and including one station in regional areas serving capillary lines) that will investigate how stakeholders and citizenship can fully benefit from the new station model proposed for those specific pilots:
  • It is expected that the applicant will setup the living labs making use of workshops, being the occasion to collaborate with local partners and civil society in order to understand which operative options can make railway stations and their surrounding neighbourhoods becoming the primary driver of sustainable practices of mobility, logistics and work, and resilient infrastructures able to readapt when necessary,
  • Methodological criteria and quantitative/qualitative deliverables are expected to stem from the four pilots, tacking the co-design and the transformation of railway stations into multi-service infrastructures,
  • A final conference for each pilot showcasing the achieved results should be organised.
• Take stock of the output of the new station model proposed for those four specific pilots and integrate the results to fine-tune the proposed European-wide methodology of the new railway station.

Interactions with other EU-RAIL projects and EU-Missions:

The action to be funded under this topic shall share the outputs with the linked projects from EU-RAIL Flagship Area 4 (stemming from the call topic HORIZON-ER-JU-FA4-01), take into consideration the work that they will release and work together for any potential interfaces.

The action to be funded under this topic is expected to liaise with the actions financed under the EU-Mission for Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, in particular with the aim of creating synergy with mobility related initiatives developed under this EU Mission.

[1] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-12/com_2021_811_the-new-eu-urban-mobility.pdf

[2]