The Tesys Rail Project: Innovative Models to Enhance the Energy Sustainability of Railway Systems

Attention to the energy efficiency of railway systems is ever increasing. The research presented in this paper, based on the activities of the TESYS Rail Project, deals with the optimization of railway energy consumptions to increase the efficiency of the system, considering the use of energy storage devices in different operating scenarios, and involving different train typologies. For this purpose, the authors developed an integrated design, simulation and optimization tool, useful also in real time applications. The approach proposed in this paper (based on the analysis of the interactions between the vehicle longitudinal dynamics and the electrical line), characterized by a high numerical efficiency, has been experimentally validated considering as a test case the Italian high speed train ETR 1000 and used to investigate the feasibility of energy storage devices in High Speed railway systems.