News Release

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 “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.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), the Land Transport Authority (LTA), and the MTR Corporation Ltd. (MTR) held an information exchange forum online on December 7, 2023. The forum was attended by 18 people from the RTRI, including Dr. Atsushi Furukawa, Executive Director of the Railway Technical Research Institute, 47 people from the LTA, including Mr. Leong Kwok Weng, Chief Engineer (Systems), and 48 people from the MTR, including Ms. Sha Wong, Head of E&M Engineering.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) developed Wooden Sleeper Deterioration Evaluation System based on a deep learning technique that uses images captured with a video camera installed on the front window of the leading car of a train running on, e.g., a commercial line. The system can automatically determine the degree of deterioration of wooden sleepers such as corrosion and cracking (Fig. 1). The system will enable wooden sleeper conditions to be determined even if track maintenance engineers do not go to the site and improve efficiency in determining the degree of deterioration of wooden sleepers, including increasing inspection speed, and saving labour and costs.

The Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) and the National Science and Technology Development Agency of Thailand (NSTDA) co-hosted Railway Technology Forum for strengthening mutual technical collaboration between the two parties on November 22, 2023, at Thailand Science Park in the suburbs of Bangkok. The forum was attended by five people from the RTRI and approximately fifty people from Thailand, including Dr. Asira Fuongfuchat, Deputy Executive Director of the NSTDA.

Mr. Kiyotaka Seki was presented with the 2023 Award for Industrial Standardization Contributor, given by the Minister of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The award ceremony was held on October 17, 2023, in Tokyo.