All the Spanish technology of rail freight, in a single centre

In addition, the new line of r & d focused on goods will support the development of national and international projects of Adif, in cooperation or even to third parties under contract and will benefit from the construction of the railway ring of testing and experimentationreference around the world, designed as a facility further to the Centre of railway technologies to respond to the demand for rolling stock manufacture. To this end, the CTF provides a facility for carrying out type approval and certification processes, and that will serve as a testbed for the development of the railway technology.

At the moment, Adif activity in r & d of goods focuses his research interest in the field of universal wide changers for goods trains, methodologies for the evaluation in terms of safety and environment of the modal shift to rail, the monitoring of speed and position of the train, systems of management of logistic material and of identification and communication technologies for improving the information and security along the logistics chain, among other interests.

Adif has 57 projects of r & d in phase of development, in collaboration with various agencies, representing a total investment of 107 million euros, in addition to the collaboration with more than 125 Spanish companies, 22 technology centres and 24 universities. The main result of this petition effort has culminated in the creation of the Centre of railway technology (CTF) and its associated facilities for testing and experimentation, the future rail ring of Bobadilla in Málaga, which will make it possible to attract an investment of 400 million euros from European technological funds and private investment for the Spanish railway. Thus, this modern Center of Adif facilities are designed to host major companies directly related to the Spanish railway innovation, which will benefit from the laboratories and test facilities associated with the CTF and the rail ring, thanks to agreements and conventions of research.

With the creation of the CTF, Adif aims to position the Spanish rail system at the forefront of the technological vanguard of Europe and world. This technological centre and complementary railway ring to be built for trials will be at the global forefront of the research, development and innovation in the field of high speed.

The CTF is installed in the building Retse, assigned by the Agency Idea, with a help of 5.6 million euros for his awarded Endowment by the Ministry of science and innovation under the heading of infrastructure technology scientist, he has 3,000 square meters on two floorswith modular spaces of 25 square metres and vessels of 150, housing technical areas of work, training classrooms, room demo, lounge of conferences, and services as a labour room and parking.

The CTF in the first phase will feature two specialized laboratories in Adif: the GSM-R laboratory, RBC-train communication technology and the development of engineering data to ERTMS; and the ICT laboratory, dedicated to intelligent transport systems and the evolution of the Da Vinci, advanced system of rail traffic management system.

In addition, in the Centre will be established specialized departments of training, technology monitoring, management of projects of r & d and technology transfer to the development of national and international projects of own Adif, cooperation or even to third parties under contract.

"The PTA brings together all the research and the innovation of high-tech railway Spain"

So he said during his visit to these facilities, the director of network management and innovation of ADIF, Antonio Berrios, who stated that the objective of this Centre is to create a cluster to make agreements with other companies in the sector and to develop joint projects.

"This Center are here to perform the most important research worldwide on the side of the rail industry" wanted to also emphasize the Andalusian Government in Malaga, María Gámez, delegate who was also present during the visit, along with the subdelegado of the Government, Hilario López Luna.

To this end, this building, which has a capacity to accommodate 200 people, is intended for all those companies that want to develop their research applied to the rail in these facilities, to then be able to check the result in ring rail of Adif in Antequera (Málaga). The CTF, which aims to position the Spanish rail system at the head of the European and global technological forefront, has two advanced laboratories of ICT technologies with a system that allows the development and validation of applications and where, moreover, do tests and simulated tests.

The fundamental requirement that a company is installed on the CTF is that the way of research is based on the railway and have a "clear" aspiration of commercialization abroad, since, as he said Berrios, the railway development in Spain is consolidated, so the objective is to export it to other countries.

Boost strategic plan to the transport of goods

The Strategic Plan of momentum to the carriage of goods by rail from the Ministry of development, with an investment of consolidated million euros, aims to improve the competitiveness and quality of the rail transport of goods by raising the share of this mode up to 10% of the total by the year 2020. Strategic Plan to improve the quality of service and efficiency of rail transport of goods include aid and incentives to r & d specializing in this area.

The principal measures taken in this line may include:

• Establish monitoring systems in real time of loads throughout the logistics chain facilitating the monitoring of the product for your information to the client.
• Implement technologies for the identification and automatic location of rolling stock for its optimization such as resource and more readily available.
• Promoting the development of an efficient system of change of width of rolling stock for the transport of goods.

The President of Adif, Antonio González Marín, and Pedro Martínez, President of Acciona infrastructure, signed a collaboration agreement in the field of research and technological development for the incorporation of the construction company at the Centre of railway technology (CTF). By virtue of this agreement, because you will install a research and development laboratory in the CTF in order to enhance its innovative capacity in the railway field. The construction company join as well their capabilities the Adif, with the aim of strengthening to Spain as a railway world technological power.

With the creation of a new laboratory, Acciona allocated a team of six researchers new Malaga technological Center, from which will enhance its development of vanguard in the rail sector. The joint priority lines of research include the development of elements of superstructure of via and durability, and auxiliary with composite structures to minimize electromagnetic interference, elastomers for reducing vibrations in the rail environment and special compounds for stabilizing ballast of high-speed road infrastructure.

From the CTF in addition, the collaboration between the two organizations for the creation of public-private consortia to submit projects of r & d to calls for national and Community aid or for the submission of joint tenders to international tenders in the rail sector will be promoted.

In this sense, Adif and Acciona maintain a portfolio of projects in collaboration among which stand out the advanced system of kinetic energy storage SA2VE, which has a budget of more than 10 million euros in the area of sustainable energy; the Aerotúnel project for the design of a tunnel of railway aerodynamics experiments aimed at the future ring of trials and experimentation of Antequera Malaga; and the recently presented draft 2011 INNPACTO of the Ministry of science and innovation programme, for the design and development of a prototype of multi-function for railway lines display.

On the other hand, Adif and Indra have reached an agreement for the incorporation of multinational information technology at the Centre of railway technologies. Indra will install a research and development laboratory specializing in advanced solutions for rail traffic. The multinational it join and capabilities the Adif, with the aim of strengthening to Spain as a global technological power at high speed.

With the creation of a new laboratory, Indra will provide a team of 20 researchers and developers to the new Malaga technological Center, from which will boost their developments of vanguard for the control and management of the railway operation, which works with Adif for more than a decade.

The main fruit of this collaboration is the Da Vinci System, developed by Indra and intellectual property of Adif, and which is considered the most advanced platform in the world for the management of rail traffic. In addition, both companies focus their efforts on railway signalling and safety. In this area, Indra has developed a new RBC (Radio Block Center) system to improve the signage within the framework of the future (ERTMS) European rail traffic management system. With this new r & d laboratory, Indra strengthens its presence in the technological park of Andalusia (PTA) of Málaga, where it has a Software Lab since the beginning of 2004. The Software Lab of Malaga, from which the company is working with the PTA and the University of Málaga, part of the network of Indra Software Labs. The network is integrated by 20 centres throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America work in which more than 4,000 professionals specialized in development of high level software for all markets in which Indra carries out its activity.

The largest rail ring world

The Minister of public works, José Blanco, and the Minister of science and innovation, Cristina Garmendia, were present in Antequera (Málaga) the project of construction of the largest rail ring in the world for testing new technologies in this sector. The realization of this project will foster the development of the economic and business fabric in the region, with the planned creation of more than 7,000 jobs - 4,800 jobs direct and indirect 2.404 - and the mobilization of 60 million euros of private investment.

The ring rail (rail circuit) - test of high-tech railway Centre - processes for certification and certification of rolling stock, as well as research, testing, testing and commissioning of new technological developments that are generated in the Centre or arising from the activities will be carried out in

R & d of the companies in the rail sector. This infrastructure will allow technological advances not only in high-speed and the conventional transport, but also developments for trams, metros, etc. The maximum speed for which projected this ring is 520 km/h, which is a competitive advantage, taking into account that the maximum speed of this type of installation does not currently exceed 270 km/h.

The Centre will be built in the railway environment of Bobadilla (Malaga) and will allow the attraction of new businesses to Andalusia, thus helping you to become a hub of key research in the rail sector.