REMSA Innovation Theater: ERCI at Railway Interchange
On Tuesday, May 20th from 3:30pm to 3:50pm, Guido Ancarani, Operations Director, gave a presentation on ERCI’s objectives, a current project, and topics for future common work with the USA. ERCI, or European Railway Clusters Initiative, is a cluster of the railway sector that operates in 17 countries in Europe. Created in 2010, ERCI was a collaboration amongst a few different clusters.
The presentation focused on 5 objectives:
- “To liase with European and international stakeholders to contribute to maintain and valorize European technological and industrial leadership also on the global market, with special attention to SMEs.
- “To foster European-level discussion on hot topics and develop joint R&I projects in coherence with the European priorities (top-down) and individual strategy of ERCI members (bottom-up).
- “Design, pilot, and leverage innovative instruments to boost companies’ competitiveness, internationalization outside the EU, upskilling/reskilling, etc., using European/National/regional funds.
- “Give visibility on European and International Level to the Rail value Chain and the innovation community of the sector.
- “Design and implement any other joint action necessary or suitable to support the achievement of previous objectives (e.g. internationalization).”
ERCI’s task forces include cybersecurity, green/sustainable energy, and multimodal logistics freight transport among others. Its international mission is to implement internationalization via missions preparation and conferences, including Railway Interchange 2025 and a conference in Canada in September.
As for topics for common future work with the USA, an abstract of their was accepted at the IHHA/WCRR joint conference taking place in Colorado Springs, Colorado this November. As for its innovations for the U.S. market, ERCi says it’s the European meta-cluster that covers “the whole rail supply chain (from infrastructure to rolling stock, to signaling to telecommunications).”
