Almost three years after an energetic start and successful development, the project will come to a “Grand Finale” in Paris. The INESS Final Conference will be held on 3 February 2012, open to the EU members, and the project will conclude with a three-day INESS Training course from 7 – 9 March 2012.

Over the last two-and-a-half years much work has been done, numerous pages written, lots of documents filled out, meetings held all over Europe, all leading towards a congruent, joint dissemination product: the Final report on INESS, its conference and its training.

For those who have missed previous INESS publications, a brief overview of the project and its aims are hereby presented. The INESS (INtegrated European Signalling System) project will define and develop specifications for a new generation of interlocking systems, and will thus extend and enhance the standardisation process of the “signalling layer”. It will further lead to the industry being more directly involved with Infrastructure Managers in developing innovative solutions for the future based on an enhanced and common understanding of the operational requirements to be delivered to the railway transport system.

This project aims to:

• Develop a business model in order to determine cost effectiveness of INESS results.
• Develop IxL data with harmonised data file formats.
• Produce a common core of validated standardised functional requirements for future interlockings, usable in the national environment as well as the ERTMS environment.
• Provide safety-verified test tools and techniques to enable the testing and commissioning of INESS IxL including signalling systems.
• Provide a safety case process support tool according to and improving the relevant CENELEC standard.
• Set up dissemination, exploitation and training in order to spread the INESS results.

While almost all workstreams are concluding their activities, WorkStream H, dedicated to the Dissemination, Exploitation and Training of activities, is at this very moment stepping up to full speed. All activities shall lead to a successful conference and training course. In WorkStream H, UIC is working in close collaboration with the representative body of the suppliers – UNIFE, FIR and ProRail.
All workstreams have provided information regarding their internal activities. Workstream H is now set to adjust these results into exploitable, trainable topics.

The workstream dedicated to the Dissemination, Exploitation and Training activities will provide a coherent training programme/exploitation setup in order to assure the long term availability of skilled and trained workforce for the implementation of INESS results.
The long-term success of INESS will be linked to the success the project had in disseminating the tools, methods and practices used in the evolution of the technical work. For this reason, it is considered central to INESS that these methods be conveyed not only to the partners, but also beyond the sphere of the project participants, once the project has finished.

The INESS training programme setup will contain:

• Explanations on benefits of a common method for describing functionalities to the railway asset managers
• Dissemination about the common kernel and explain the advantage for infrastructure managers, industry partners and safety authorities
• Explanations on the advantages of using the common kernel in order to convince standardisation bodies to work towards a European standard
• A presentation about the Interlocking-RBC interface FFFIS, focusing on the benefits of standard interfaces
• A demonstration on advantages for infrastructure managers, industry partners and safety authorities in each country on using the INESS architecture/ interface specifications
• Demonstration on the process towards a proposal for a standardised system architecture to standard setting and regulatory bodies, safety authorities and the European Railway Agency
• A presentation about the harmonised testing and commissioning of interlockings explaining the advantage for infrastructure managers, industry partners and safety authorities in each country
• The use of the work bench in projects.

As stated Workstream H’s dedication to the Dissemination, Exploitation and Training is in full speed in order to deliver the job on time!

To participate in this INESS Final Conference on 3 February 2012, please register online now at http://www.iness.eu/spip.php?article7

The final programme and registration for the INESS Training Course from 7 – 9 March 2012 will be available online starting 15 November at http://www.iness.eu/spip.php?article13.

For further information about the programme of the events please visit our dedicated website www.iness.eu or contact Maria Lafont, WS H Leader lafont at uic.org

ProRail, Lex Moscou

(Sources:www.iness.eu)
Internal documents