The Railway Infrastructure Fund (RIF) can be used to fund research helping to maintain the value of railway infrastructure, and ensure its efficient and safe operation, maintenance and expansion.
Funds can also be used to promote innovations which benefit operation and asset maintenance, including upgrading infrastructure to the state of the art and modern transport requirements. Certain innovation projects can also be funded in the various expansion stages.
The budget for regional passenger transport (RPT) is used to promote innovations that help to reduce costs and create added value for public transport users. The aim of the programme is to make regional transport more efficient and attractive.
The FOT can fund research and development including demonstration projects (pilot projects/plants, field trials, etc.) as part of the federal government's energy strategy in public transport.
It can also support innovations that improve energy efficiency in operations, infrastructure and vehicles or that contribute to renewable energy generation. Support is also available for the dissemination of methodologies, knowledge and good practices and for the development of principles and tools for incentive schemes.
In its Activity Report, the FOT provides an insight into three funding programmes: "Rail Infrastructure Research", "Energy Strategy for Public Transport 2050" and "Innovation in Regional Passenger Transport". The publication presents a selection of the projects supported last year and introduces the people behind them.
With this publication, the FOT would like to contribute to the dissemination of project results and encourage interested parties from the entire industry to submit applications for the support of innovative projects.
Those who would like more frequent information on specific programmes can subscribe to the newsletter of the "Energy Strategy in Public Transport 2050" programme or the infos of the "Innovation in Regional Passenger Transport" programme. Another resource is the federal government's project database ARAMIS: it enables a full-text search of all funded projects and allows quick access to project descriptions and reports. It is available on the respective programme pages under the menu item "Project results".
Note: The resources cited are available in either German or French.
