News Release 2024

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.