The European Railway Research Advisory Council (ERRAC) aims at being the single sector voice for railway research and innovation
The European Railway Research Advisory Council (ERRAC) was set up in 2001 with the ambitious goal of creating a single European body with both the competence and capability to help evolve the European rail sector and make it more competitive, by fostering increased innovation and guiding research efforts at European level.
Within ERRAC, all major rail stakeholders are gathered including: railway undertakings, infrastructure managers, manufacturers, the European Commission, the European Union Agency for Railways, EU Member States, academics and users’ groups. This enables a broad coverage of all forms of rail transport: from conventional, high speed and freight applications to urban and regional services.
ERRAC’s primary objective is to deliver the common railway sector vision of R&I to the European Institutions and important stakeholders, in order to contribute shaping a favourable funding landscape for railway research and innovation, developing innovation via calls for projects and joint undertaking like Shift2Rail.
ERRAC is currently chaired by Prof. Andy Doherty, Mr.Nicolas Castres Saint-Martin and Prof. Sebastian Stichel. Since its start in 2001, ERRAC has been producing a number of vision-setting documents – among which the Joint Strategy for European rail Research – Vision 2020, the SRRA – Strategic Rail Research Agenda and its 2007 SRRIA updated version, the FOSTERRAIL Roadmaps. Building on these documents, it released its newest strategy vision document – Rail 2050 Vision – in December 2017.