Automated rail wagon for new freight transport opportunities

The paper proposes some results of an experimental research which was started a couple of years ago by COELDA SRL, with the support of the Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria and the National Railway Company, aimed at making rail freight transport more efficient and competitive. Attention is directed towards conceiving a network transport system on the one hand and towards operability of wagons in limited contexts, such as inland terminals, ports, and industrial rail connections, on the other. In both cases, the use of self-propelled wagons was assumed. Some results of the experimental research concerning the self-propelled wagons are proposed below. The attention is turned particularly towards 2 aspects: the technological components and some computer protocols for the movement of the wagon checked to distance and the automatic joining of 2 wagons; the architecture of the System that integrates the operability of the station with that of the line, for the purpose of the transport to make commodities operational in a capillary way on the railway net, and without determining ties to the exercise of the momentary trains.