News Release

Two researchers of the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) have been awarded the Fiscal Year 2025 Commendation for Science and Technology (Research category)* by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as the MEXT Commendation for Science and Technology). The award ceremony was held at the MEXT Auditorium (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) on April 15, 2025.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), East Japan Railway Company (JR East), and Sony Corporation, who jointly developed the Fare Collection System Using Contactless Smart Cards (see Fig. 1), are pleased to announce that the system has been honored with the 18th “Denki no Ishizue (Foundations of Electricity)” Award, an electrical technology commendation, by the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan (IEEJ). The award ceremony was held on March 19, 2025, at the Meiji University’s Academy Hall, Surugadai Campus (see Fig. 2 and Fig. 3).

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) has developed an inspection support system using images of tunnel walls (hereinafter referred to as “this system”) to conduct tunnel inspections efficiently. This system uses AI to extract deteriorations from images of tunnel walls and identify the overall soundness of tunnels, and projects areas that require special attention and intensive investigations on the actual wall surface, thereby supporting the investigation process.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) invited the French National Railways (SNCF) to its headquarters and hosted the 11th SNCF-RTRI Collaborative Research Seminar for three days, from November 6 to 8, 2024.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) held the 37^th RTRI Annual Conference entitled “Aiming for Sustainable Development of Railways —Labor-Saving and Automatic Train Operations—.” A total of 473 participants attended the conference from railway operators, government agencies, universities, companies, and the like.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) held the “RTRI Technology Forum FY 2024” at its headquarters to widely disseminate its research achievements and business activities.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) has put the signal arrangement examination function into practical use. This function has been developed as an additional function to SPEEDY, a system calculating train performance curves. Train performance curves provide valuable information for calculating station-to-station running time, a step essential to create train timetables. This examination function enables to significantly streamline the process of proposing a signal arrangement (setting block sections and determining the position of signals), which needs to be examined when planning track layouts for constructing new stations or when establishing new lines.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) developed “IMPACTUS,” a high-performance measurement system to support the estimation of natural frequencies of bridge piers. These frequencies are used as soundness evaluation indexes for one of the bridge substructure inspections.
The adoption of the dual tuning fork type crystal oscillator chip enabled the new system to reduce noise more significantly and to estimate natural frequencies more easily than with conventional systems. Moreover, the IMPACTUS sensor is smaller and lighter than conventional sensors, which provides superior portability and workability.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) won the 35th Radio Achievement Award bestowed by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications jointly with Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc., Waseda University, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, and the National Institute of Maritime, Port and Aviation Technology.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) hosted the 58^th Annual Meeting of the Subsonic Aerodynamic Testing Association (SATA) in Kyoto from June 2 to 6, 2024.

We are delighted to announce that Mr. Hiroyuki Nozawa of the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) has been awarded the ISO Excellence Award by ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) for his contributions to the development of the international standard for railway quality management systems.

Dr. Kodai Matsuoka, Senior Researcher of RTRI, received the Young Scientist Award* for 2024 from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. On April 17, Dr. Matsuoka was awarded the commendation certificate at the hall of the Ministry.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) developed a “seismic reinforcement method for bridge abutments using ground reinforcing nails” (Fig. 1) as an effective seismic reinforcement method which can be performed while minimizing the workspace in front side of bridge abutments. This method eliminates the need for extensive work starting from the front side of the abutment as in the past and enables economical design according to the required seismic performance levels.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) has been working on the research and development of the superconducting feeding system. We are now starting the technical verification of the world’s first power transmission for commercial line operation through the system on the Sunzu Line (IZUHAKONE Railway Co., LTD.). We have been authorized by the government to use the system as a railway facility for this operational verification.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) developed driver advisory technologies utilizing speed transition estimation and a prototype system thereof (hereinafter, “driver advisory system”) for energy saving.