SNCF Réseau has invited manufacturers Alstom, Ansaldo STS, Siemens and Thales to present creative proposals for the next generation railway switches in a project called the ARGOS Innovation Partnership. As part of a transformation of the French infrastructure, SNCF Réseau raises the technical and economic standards.

With the project, SNCF aims to reduce the costs of the product, maintenance and future upgrades, as well as manpower and time required for the implementation of future switches. With the creative outcome, the French infrastructure manager wants to increase the overall performance of new facilities, particularly in the areas of cyber security, maintenance and operations.

Method

Each team brings together a pool of specialists, which will join forces with experts from SNCF Réseau. The four groups are currently working on technical proposals that will be evaluated by SNCF Réseau early next year. From the spring of 2019, the teams whose projects have been selected will prepare a “model” to demonstrate the technical and economic efficiency of their project. On this basis, SNCF Réseau will select some proposals for industrialisation in 2020.