SOON AUTONOMOUS TRAINS

"With the autonomous train, all the trains will circulate in a harmonized way and at the same speed, and the railway exploitation will gain in fluidity. And more fluidity, it is a better regularity and a greater punctuality of the trains ", foresees the boss of the SNCF Guillaume Pepy, quoted in a release.

it plans to move fully automated prototype trains by 2023 through a partnership with the Alstom railroad manufacturers and the Canadian Bombardier.

"With the autonomous train, all the trains will circulate in a harmonized way and at the same speed, and the railway exploitation will gain in fluidity. And more fluidity, it is a better regularity and a greater punctuality of the trains " , according to Guillaume Pépy.

The French company and Railenium, the research institute of the railway industry based in Valenciennes (North), are also leading two consortiums designed in January to do this.

The first consortium includes Alstom, the Altran engineering group, the Italian signaling specialist Ansaldo STS (Hitachi Group) and Apsys, an Airbus subsidiary in charge of cybersecurity. He will have to produce an autonomous freight train.

The second, dedicated to travelers, must automate a TER. It consists of Canadian automaker Bombardier, German equipment manufacturer Bosch, artificial intelligence specialist SpirOps and technology group Thales.

The consortia will have a budget of 57 million euros financed by 30% by the SNCF, 30% by the State and 40% by the other partners.

In the coming years, this means building fully automated trains.

No obligation of human presence to steer the train.

Eventually this project would allow more trains to run on the busiest lines, and also reduce energy consumption by optimizing driving.

Also contemplated are applications such as remotely controlling a freight train.

Industrially, these trains would not be built before 2025 however.

Such a project is reminiscent of the Hyperloop initiative launched in 2013 by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, who could eventually give birth to a high-speed train capable of traveling more than 1,100 kilometers per hour.

The Hyperloop would connect the cities of Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than 30 minutes ...