On 6 October 2023, TRAIL PhD researcher Joelle Aoun will defend her PhD thesis ‘Impact Assessment of Train-Centric Rail Signalling Technologies’ at Delft University of Technology. The defence is public, and you are invited to join.

Moreover, on the occasion of this public defence, TRAIL and TU Delft have set up a seminar on AI for Railways and Intelligent Train Control.

This seminar considers challenges and opportunities of the usage of artificial intelligence in railway transport. Valeria Vittorini discusses the adoption of artificial intelligence in the rail sector, with a focus on autonomous trains, maintenance and inspection, and traffic planning and management. Stemming from concrete proofs-of-concept developed in the Shift2Rail project RAILS, recommendations and directions are provided for future research. Francesco Flammini provides a vision about future train control that builds upon existing automatic train operation, protection, and supervision paradigms. The basic concepts for autonomous driving in digital railways is provided, and feasibility is addressed in terms of challenges and opportunities, including explainability, autonomic computing, and digital twins.

Programme seminar
Chairman: Prof. dr. Rob M.P. Goverde

13.00 – 13.25    Door open (lunch will be served)
13.25 – 13.30    Prof. dr. Rob M.P. Goverde, Delft University of Technology, Welcome speech
13.30 – 14.00    Dr. Valeria Vittorini, University of Naples “Federico II”, ‘AI for Railways: applications, criticalities, and suggestions for future research directions’
14.00 – 14.30    Prof. dr. Francesco Flammini, Mälardalen University, ‘A Vision of Intelligent Train Control’
14.30 – 15.00    Open discussion and closing

Location
TU Delft, faculty TPM
Room E

Registration
Participation is free, registration is required: click here.

Public defence
At 10:00 h the public defence starts in the Senaatszaal of the Aula.
At 09:30 h Joelle Aoun will give a brief presentation about her research in the same room.