Means of travel and transportation

This project aims to identify and understand the roles played by Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) in constructing our changing of sense of European social and cultural space and promoting intercultural dialogue in Europe. It seeks to increase knowledge about the new rationales, representations and relations that underlie the increased opportunities and proliferation of routes opened up by LCCs, and to explain their impact on the ways we perceive, communicate and imagine ourselves through origins, journeys and destinations in Europe. In the process, the project considers the identifications and motivations (including both push and pull factors) for LCC travel, be it for leisure (weekend breaks, holidays, visiting friends and family, stag and hen nights, cultural, sporting and sexual tourism) or business (commuting, outsourcing, temporary migration, expansion of markets). Equally, the project is concerned with documenting and analyzing spatial and temporal representations of LCC travel, including journeys and destinations, as evidenced in the promotional material of LCCs (marketing, branding, in-flight magazines, websites) and representations of the companies and the journeys in popular culture (from internet video sharing and social networking sites to instances described in film and text). However, as the 2005 film One Day in Europe suggests by the bi-national cameos it explores, contact between cultures, communities and individuals in Europe, while increasing in volume, is not always marked by greater cultural understanding, and the project is equally concerned with uncovering the new forms of disparity and disadvantage, resentment and prejudice within the borderlands of regional airline Europe.

The European satellite based localization system Galileo which is currently put into operation promises innovative solutions for transport. The goal of this project is to apply Galileo as a base for migration from conventional railway localization equipment towards guaranteed Galileo Safety of Life (SoL) services for transportation. Since in Europe nearly 50% of all railway lines belong to secondary railway lines (and probably even more in non-European countries), this sector may be assumed as a niche but could rise to a mass market if the number about 50,000 locomotives in Europe is regarded. Reaching for safe, efficient and energy saving train control the new resulting localization unit promises a short-term return on investment (ROI). The outline for the project GaLoROI therefore aims on replacing trackside or manual localization technique by satellite based localization equipment on trains. This fundamental shift of paradigm generates the localization data at the source of movement to the train. This corresponds also to ETCS level 3. Railway Operators will be enabled to replace expensive and old track side equipment by modern on-board satellite based localization units. On-board satellite based localization supply the train control and protection as well as interlocking and track vacancy detection with safe and accurate position information at lower costs. Cost-intensive maintenance of track side equipment will not be necessary anymore. If satellite based localization is integrated into a modern train control system, the capacity and/ or frequency of trains will increase and thus will enable more attractively public transport solutions and freight transport. Localization and train control could benefit through satellite based localization. Moreover optimized train dispatching will benefit from precise localization as well as energy optimized runs of trains.

The Swiss Federal Office for Migration (BFM) has commissioned the ICMPD to undertake a comparative study of asylum procedures at seven European airports - Zürich, Brussels, Frankfurt a.M., London-Heathrow, Vienna, Paris-Roissy and Schiphol. Objectives • To provide an overview of the legal and practical framework and methods applied in the selected airports • To enable the BMF to put the Swiss policies into a European perspective • To design better and more rational airport asylum procedures Outcomes Comparative analysis of: • Asylum procedure at the airport • Accommodation of asylum seekers during the procedure in the transit zone • Deportation and securing The study includes elements of field research (qualitative interviews with governmental, non-governmental and international organisations involved as well as visitation of the respective premises at the airport) and desk research (examination of legal texts, literature and relevant statistics).

IN2RAIL is to set the foundations for a resilient, consistent, cost-efficient, high capacity European network by delivering important building blocks that unlock the innovation potential that exists in SHIFT2RAIL: innovative technologies will be explored and resulting concepts embedded in a systems framework where infrastructure, information management, maintenance techniques, energy, and engineering are integrated, optimised, shared and exploited. IN2RAIL will make advances towards SHIFT2RAIL objectives: enhancing the existing capacity fulfilling user demand; increasing the reliability delivering better and consistent quality of service; reducing the LCC increasing competitiveness of the EU rail system. To achieve the above, a holistic approach covering Smart Infrastructures, Intelligent Mobility Management (I2M)and Rail Power Supply and Energy Management will be applied. Smart Infrastructure addresses the fundamental design of critical assets - switches and crossings and tracks. It will research components capable of meeting future railway demands and will utilise modern technologies in the process. Risk and condition-based LEAN approaches to optimise RAMS and LCC in asset maintenance activities will be created to tackle the root causes of degradation. I2M researches automated, interoperable and inter-connected advanced traffic management systems; scalable and upgradable systems, utilising standardised products and interfaces, enabling easy migration from legacy systems; the wealth of data and information on assets and traffic status; information management systems adding the capability of nowcasting and forecasting of critical asset statuses. Rail Power Supply and Energy Management create solutions to improve the energy performance of the railway system. Research on new power systems characterised by reduced losses and capable of balancing energy demands, along with innovative energy management systems enabling accurate and precise estimates of energy flows.

Currently European Train Control System (ETCS) rollout is a major concern for the railway sector. Equipment for ETCS level 1 and 2 typically follows a long process before being put into service due to interpretation variations in the specification and certification procedures requiring long and expensive field-testing. On the other hand, migration from ETCS level 2 to 3 has not been yet foreseen due to the technical. EATS has the objective to address these two situations: 1. EATS will propose innovative lab. tools providing a model of the on-board ERTMS system, and including the dynamic behaviour of the air-gap comm. and fault injection for the safety assessment. This will lead to reduced laboratory and field-testing certification process time and cost. In the current economic situation, this is crucial to keep the ETCS deployment speed. 2. EATS will propose a novel positioning system based on the combination of different techniques proved useful for other industrial sectors and exploit unique features of the railway and the train. Moreover, RAMS analysis and laboratory testing are foreseen to verify the proposed technical solution. This will be a step forward towards ETCS level 3 that minimizes trackside costs and maximizes track capacity. The consortium is clearly concerned about the return to the society of the funding obtained. Dissemination will be done by a web site with open forum, 2 workshops for industry, 2 courses for engineering students, 8 scientific papers, an Advisory Board and contribution to standards. The consortium presents 3 key characteristics to overcome these challenges: world class organizations with successful previous experiences (e.g. CEIT coordinates [TREND], NSL participated in [GRAIL]); it involves technology providers (CEIT, FhG), subsystem integrator (INT), service providers (NSL, ESOL) and Notified Body (CETREN). Finally, the consortium has a small size to eliminate inefficiencies and work redundancies typical from large IP projects.

Since GPS has reached full operational capability in 1993, the system has been taken up by public transport applications quite slowly compared to automotive navigation devices on the road. Even today GPS is used only at some installations for traveller information for tram/bus arrival time, but mostly not for demanding tasks that affect traffic light control. The current proposal on “GSP – Galileo Signal Priority” starts right here with the application of transit signal priority (TSP) for vehicles of public transportation (PT). The project focus has been put on TSP to overcome the last obstacle for a sustainable introduction of GNSS to support and improve all functions of PT. With this step the existing infrastructure based systems (which are less flexible and more cost intensive) shall be dispensable, to save cost on equipment and maintenance and explore the full potential of onboard intelligence, where GNSS has a leading role to enable the overall application. In this regard the main aim of this proposal is: • To develop a prototype for robust positioning exploring EGNOS, EDAS or Galileo as main sensor, in order to satisfying all the requirements in PT. • To develop new traffic light control schemes, which can explore the advantages of GNSS based systems in PT and overcome the deficiencies of costly infrastructure based systems. Both steps are essential elements for a successful market entry plan to bring robust positioning into demanding PT applications. While new performance levels in positioning are achievable through the use of EGNOS, EDAS and Galileo, the migration of this innovative technology into existing systems of PT has to be solved as well. A concept will be elaborated to enable a smooth transition from state of the art systems, towards new PT schemes on the basis of innovative products. The project objectives support the development of adequate GNSS based products, including necessary steps for their integration into modern ITCS.

SARA: Search and Rescue Aid using High Accuracy EGNSS The purpose of the SARA project is to engineer and to start to commercialise a dedicated solution, based on an already existing prototype, to be used for Search and Rescue (SAR) and Surveillance purposes (primary market). The need for such a solution comes in particular from the institutional market (but it is not limited to) requesting a technological support to manage migration flux aspects, with particular attention to crisis in the Mediterranean Sea: Europe needs to balances efforts to assist people in need with efforts to secure its borders. On the basis of the above scenario, the industrial composition of the SARA consortium has been contacted by Italian Coast Guard two years ago in order to provide a technological contribution supporting vessels to detect people lost in the sea, especially during the hours of darkness. According to the above request, SARA solution is conceived to build up a semi-automatic system using Earth Observation data to preliminary detect suspect pontoons’ trajectories (Surveillance) and supporting SAR operations based upon a deployable RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) which is tightly coupled with a ship architecture through a cable (tethered flight): as soon as its function is needed, the aircraft flies from its home (a dedicated hangar on the top of the ship), and becomes a “virtual pylon” which elevates a VIS-TIR sensor (Visual Spectrum and Thermal Infrared); captured images are processed in real time by a local computer. Both RPAS and hangar are equipped with 2 high accuracy EGNSS receivers (i.e. Galileo ready) in order to provide the relative positioning between the hangar and the RPAS hovering on the target. On this context, EGNSS represents an essential technology ensuring autonomous operations in a reliable manner guaranteeing provision of distance and bearing from ship to survivors and the protection of the extensible cable against mechanical stress.

This project centres ‘the carceral archipelago’ in the history of the making of the modern world. It analyses the relationships and circulations between and across convict transportation, penal colonies and labour, migration, coercion and confinement. It incorporates all the global powers engaged in transportation for the purpose of expansion and colonization - Europe, Russia, Latin America, China, Japan – over the period from Portugal’s first use of convicts in North Africa in 1415 to the dissolution of Stalin’s gulags in 1960. It uses an innovative theoretical base to shift convict transportation out of the history of crime and punishment into the new questions being raised by global and postcolonial history. The project maps for the first time global networks of transportation and penal colonies. It undertakes case study archival research on relatively unexplored convict flows, and on the mobility of ideas and practices around transportation and other modes of confinement. It analyses its findings within the broader literature, including on transportation but also debates around the definition of freedom/ unfreedom, the importance of circulating labour, and global divergence and convergence. It redefines what we mean by ‘transportation,’ explores penal transportation as an engine of global change, de-centres Europe in historical analysis, and defines long-term impacts on economy, society and identity. It places special stress on investigating whether a transnational approach to the topic gives us a fresh theoretical starting point for studying global history that moves beyond ‘nation’ or ‘empire.’ The project lies at the intersections of national, colonial and global history, and economic, social and cultural history. It will be of wide interest to scholars of labour, migration, punishment and confinement; comparative and global history; diaspora, creolization and cultural translation; and museum and heritage studies.

At NEEL we have developed an absolute novelty on a world scale: UOZ-1 animal deterring system that successfully prevents the animal-train collisions. The device exploits an animal natural sensitivity to sound and just before a train approach, at the time of the danger, a series of sounds stimulates animal instinct and enforces their life defensive reflex reaction in the form of escape. Our UOZ-1 animal deterring devise has been created in response to the particular need of preventing collisions of wild animals with trains in areas where the migration routes of animals cross the railway lines. The primary objective of the SafeTrain Project is to pilot and test in real environment the autonomous system for the automatic train detection that will be integrated with our UOZ-2 animal deterring device. The new train location system will be based on an intelligent mechanism of listening for an approaching train commercially known as an “Indian ear”. Our goal is to incorporate it into the animal deterring system in order to make it independent from the currently used rail signalling system. This will not only reduce the complexity of the whole system but also will reduce the investment and maintenance costs down to 60% of the todays costs. The secondary, but not less important goal is the development of green powering system for UOZ-2 utilising renewable energy sources to make the system energetically self-sustained. This will be of particular importance in areas where the rail track has not been electrified and thus with limited access to grid power. Our acoustic method for train-animal collisions prevention is an excellent solution that allows preservation of ecological corridors and animal migration routes and significantly reduces the safety and business risk of rail carriers. It overcomes all limitations of the state-of the-art solutions available on the market, and looking at Europe only, opens the way to the market worth of nearly 125m€.

The project addresses the development of innovative GNSS Safety of Live (SoL) application in the train control speed supervision, train control and traffic management of low traffic lines (LTL). The application contributes to the adoption of EGNOS as a precursor and to the introduction of Galileo in the rail safety related domain. Application is in a broad context since it introduces the GNSS train positioning and speed determination with SoL characteristics in all critical operations of a railway line. The project includes the development and integration of new concept, software, hardware, services and datasets compatible with the current evolution of the rail signalling and rail standards. The selection of LTL application demonstrates the complementarity and migration to the ETCS when GNSS is applied in a holistic approach. Overall objective: Develop and demonstrate by real train operation the innovative concept of applying the GNSS SoL to railway safety and produce advanced operation on low traffic lines and hence: • Stimulate adoption of EGNOS within new innovative rail operation with important market impact and with important effects on socio-economic, mobility and environment; • Prepare markets for Galileo introduction since EGNOS is the precursor of GALILEO. Enablers will be created including the awareness and preparation of the railway operations to immediately apply the new system; • Stimulate EU GNSS industry competitiveness in domains which are reputed (railway safety, railway integrated operations) for using mostly traditional ground-based technologies and conservative for global approach. The railway industries and the satellite navigation industries will cooperate. The overall result is the full specification, applied technology and live demonstration – to create impact and proof of feasibility and economic evidence, validated and certified under the EU ruling and applied on the line Brasov – Zarnesti of the RCCF-TRANS (Romania).

During 2006 the Canary Islands received more than 30,000 boat people from the West African coasts. The so-called “cayuco crisis” resulted in institutional and or-ganizational improvement in the management of irre-gular migration flows through the Canaries Regional Coordination Centre, established in 2006. The centre coordinates the interception, retention and repatriation provisions and integrates several institutional actors like Frontex, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NGOs. The paper describes this new institutional structure, its functions, actions and organi-zation. Several years have passed since 2006 and arrivals have dropped to low levels. There are lessons to be drawn from the organizational innovation experience in the Canary Islands. The paper identifies improvements and shortcomings in managing irregular migration flows.

The project examines the treatment of third-country nationals at the external borders of the European Union in light of the existing fundamental rights framework. Two specific situations are taken into consideration: (1) treatment of third country nationals on the Southern maritime borders of the European Union (Phase I) and (2) treatment of third country nationals at selected land and airport border crossing points (Phase 2). The geographical scope of the research in Phase 1 covers 7 maritime border sectors in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain; while in Phase 2 - eleven border crossing points at the external Schengen border, including six land border crossing points (BCPs between Bulgaria and Turkey, between Greece and Turkey, between Slovakia and Ukraine, between Hungary and Serbia, between Poland and Ukraine and between Spain and Morocco, and five border crossing points at selected airports (Paris C.d.Gaulle, Amsterdam/Schiphol, Rome/ Fiumicino, Frankfurt and Manchester). Phase 1 (Maritime borders) Objectives • to examine challenges that emerge during interception and rescue at sea and immediately after disembarkation of migrants • to enhance the protection of fundamental rights during rescue or interception operations at sea, by supporting those in charge of border management to deal with the fundamental rights challenges they may encounter on a daily basis. In Phase 1 the study is based on qualitative research with third country nationals, authorities, fishermen and shipmasters, non-participant observation at maritime borders, and focus group interviews with stakeholder groups, both in EU and third countries. Phase 2 (Land and airport border crossing points) Objectives • to review existing procedures and practices in order to identify whether third-country nationals are treated in accordance with applicable fundamental rights standards (complementation of the Schengen Evaluation system) • to review if commitments related to the Schengen Borders Code (respect for human dignity, non-refoulement, non-discriminatory conduct) are respected during first and second line border checks as well as in facilities used for persons refused admission. In Phase 2 the study is based on non-participant observation at border crossing points, quantitative and qualitative research with third country nationals, and interviews with civil society actors. Outcomes Maritime border research Empirical case studies (phase 1) • 7 case studies of maritime border sectors • 5 sets of country fact sheets (maritime borders), covering 7 themes • Comparative report of fundamental rights challenges relating to surveillance and control of maritime borders Human rights training related to rescue and interception at sea • 5 country reports on Fundamental Rights training • Recommendations for training of border guards Land and air border research • 11 case studies of border crossing points • 9 sets of country fact sheets on 4 themes • Comparative report on border crossing points