UNIFE and UIC publish first TecRec

At the first meeting of the UIC/UNIFE Standards Management Group, the joint group that manages the TecRec process, UIC and UNIFE announced the publication of the first TecRec (Technical Recommendation). This first TecRec “Specification and verification of energy consumption for railway rolling stock”, deals with the measurement and calculation of energy consumption in railway vehicles and is a result of the RailEnergy project (www.railenergy.org) coordinated by UNIFE and managed in collaboration with the UIC.

The objective of the TecRec is to determine the energy performance of specified rolling stock in a certain service. The criterion for the energy consumption of the rolling stock is the total net energy consumed – either at the pantograph or from the fuel tank – over a predefined service profile, which is either taken from the future operation of the train, or according to a standardised typical profile valid for the specific service category of trains. In this way the TecRec will provide the framework within which energy performance values for trains and locomotives can be compared from a common baseline and thereby support benchmarking and improvement of the energy efficiency of rail vehicles.

The RailEnergy project is made up of partners who are rail system integrators (Ansaldobreda, Alstom, Bombardier, Siemens), rail system suppliers (Faiveley, SAFT Batteries), railway undertakings and infrastructure managers (Banverket, Rail Cargo Austria, RFI, Trenitalia), simulation companies and consultancies (D’Appolonia, Corys, emkamatik, ENOTRAK, EUROLUM, FAV, IST, IZT, SCIROIDEA, Transrail, Transtechnik) as well as universities and research institutes (KTH, Nitel, Vuz).

The TecRec has been approved within the UIC by the Technology and Research Platform and by the UNIFE Technical Committee. TecRecs are presented in the same format as that used for the European Standards (EN) so as to facilitate a future transfer to the CEN or CENELEC and publication as an EN.

The TecRec will be available within the UNIFE and UIC websites and very soon at www.tecrec-rail.org for immediate use by UIC and UNIFE members.