Sustainable Rail Developments supplement

• Railsponsible: the rail sustainable procurement initiative
  In March 2015, Alstom, Bombardier, Deutsche Bahn, Knorr Bremse, Nederlandse Spoorwegen and SNCF came together in Utrecht to officially launch Railsponsible, a collaborative initiative aimed at improving sustainability practices throughout the railway industry supply chain. To understand how Railsponsible will help railway industry companies tackle the sustainable procurement challenges they face in the long run, Global Railway Review spoke to Uwe Günther, Jeroen Wegkamp and Stefan Bürkle, Chief Procurement Officers of Deutsche Bahn, Nederlandse Spoorwegen and SNCF, respectively…
• The MERLIN project: making energy management in the railway system smarter
  The MERLIN project ‘Sustainable and Intelligent Management of Energy for Smarter Railway Systems in Europe: an Integrated Optimisation Approach’ is co-funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme and involves 18 partners including European railway systems integrators and equipment suppliers, railway operators and infrastructure managers, research centres, consultancies companies and professional associations. MERLIN’s main aim is to investigate and demonstrate the viability of an integrated management system to achieve a more sustainable and optimised energy usage in European electric mainline railway systems…
• Erex: ‘standardisation key’ to the EU’s Energy Union
  Eress is an open partnership for infrastructure managers, jointly owned by its partners, committed to the development, implementation and supply of Erex – an efficient, reliable, accurate and flexible energy settlement system which allows infrastructure managers to fulfil requirements for a neutral and non-discriminatory operation, and allows train operators to save energy and costs. Terje Stømer and Dyre Martin Gulbrandsen are the leaders behind Erex and they maintain that it will play an integral role in helping Europe achieve its ‘20-20-20’ targets set for 2020…