Functional Priorities

Low emissions

Carbon and air emissions will be minimised by cheaper and less disruptive electrification, zero-carbon diesel replacement, greater efficiency and removing emissions at source.

Better air quality is key to the health of our passengers, staff and wider society. A fully decarbonised and energy efficient railway will ensure that the sector plays a key role in meeting net zero carbon ambitions for the transport sector.

Malcolm Brown

"It is no longer a question of what’s the business case, but what’s the fastest and most efficient track to get to a net zero carbon railway." READ MORE

Malcolm Brown, CEO, Angel Trains and Chair of the Decarbonisation Taskforce
VIEW THE ROUTEMAP

The functional priority routemaps highlight the steps needed in the next few years to ensure that new technical solutions can underpin progress towards the key goals. You can explore the latest version of the routemap below and also read about progress to date against the stepping stones.

Rail Technical Strategy Select the routemap or progress update, then hover over the image to zoom in / out.

An interactive version is available to view on desktop

Who is doing what?

Many research and innovation activities support progress towards the goals set out for this priority. Visibility of these is essential to enable greater collaboration and increase the likelihood of success. This is why the RTS puts a spotlight on a selection of these activities, enables you to download the full list of activities of which we are aware, and invites you to add to this picture by sharing your own work.

Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) competition

£20 million was made available for projects to develop novel CCUS technology and processes that reduce the cost of deployment.

Rail Carbon Accounting Framework (RCAF)

RSSB is aligning carbon data and accounting across the industry and its supply chain to save time and money, improve monitoring and support research and strategic decisions in the move toward net zero.

MultHyFuel

MultHyFuel is a three-year consortium-led project focussed on overcoming technical and administrative barriers to the deployment of multifuel hydrogen refuelling stations.

A compact hydrogen powered range extender

Led by Durham University, a project investigating the capability of version 4 piston-free range extender to switch from liquid (gasoline) to gaseous (hydrogen) fuel without hardware changes.

Digital Displacement for Non-Passenger Rail

Led by Artemis Intelligent Power, an investigation into the technical and commercial feasibility of using Digital Displacement technology to reduce carbon emissions in the rail freight sector.

Overhead Line Equipment Foundation Design

Collaboration with the University of Southampton and In Situ has provided the evidence base for a more economical foundation design and cheaper electrification.

HydroFLEX – Hydrogen Powered Train

A collaboration between Porterbrook and the University of Birmingham to trial of the first hydrogen-powered train in the UK, developed by fitting a hydrogen pack to an existing Class 319 train set.

Green Valley Lines – Renewable Energy

Led by Riding Sunbeams, a study into the potential to help optimise traction energy use on AC passenger networks through integrating storage technologies and directly supplied renewable electricity.

Battery trains route to enter into service

RSSB project T1195 aims to address the challenge of how to replace and/or modify the existing diesel fleet of freight locomotives with less carbon intensive solutions while reducing other pollutants.

Share what you are working on

Help keep the industry up to date with progress by sharing your research and innovation activities that are relevant to this priority.



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