Quiet tracks for sustainable railway infrastructure

Sustainable rail and metro travel in Europe is improving as rail technology advances and standards become increasingly harmonised. Faster, quieter, safer and more eco-friendly trains are making rail travel more popular across the continent, taking sustainable urban, rural and transnational rail transport to new levels.

Against this backdrop, the EU-funded QUIET-TRACK (Quiet tracks for sustainable railway infrastructures) project is striving to ensure that trains travel more quietly through the European countryside and cities. It is developing track-based solutions for decreasing railway rolling noise through improved noise mitigation and maintenance systems.

This is being achieved by improving current rolling noise models through better noise estimation, better on-board monitoring systems and high-tech preventative maintenance. In this context, the project team is developing embedded track systems that reduce noise by at least 6 dB(A), in comparison with state-of-the-art systems.

Already, the project team has undertaken significant modelling and simulation trials to calculate rolling noise. It has also developed and tested solutions to reduce noise such as track absorbing panels, rail dampers and low-noise barriers, yielding excellent results that were in line with simulations. The results are not only useful for improving travel and comfort on long-distance trains, but also on metro and tram lines in urban areas.

Overall, the project will produce an impressive set of solutions and tools for mitigating railway noise, from tracking decay and rail roughness to identifying sections in need of maintenance. Harmonised procedures for measuring roughness and decay, coupled with powerful simulation software, will help engineers, consultants, railway operators and infrastructure managers to improve rail transport. A more sustainable rail system that encourages comfort and health of society is expected to emerge from this ambitious endeavour.