Last week, Alstom announced that they will create an innovation partnership with SNCF to develop the next TGV generation.

The project’s goals are to develop a train that:

• Reduction of acquisition costs of 20%
• Increase of recyclability of material to > 90%
• Reduction of energy consumption > 25%
• Increase passenger capacity > 20%

So what can we expect? There are a lots of possible technologies to achieve this and it will be an interesting project to follow and see what can be industrialized and what not. Possibilities are among others:

• New materials: Kawasaki showed for instance at last innotrans a carbon fiber bogie, could be interesting for many parts of the train
• Pivot bogie: To reduce production and maintenance costs, certainly an idea
• Unfollow the previous powerhead concept and implement a true EMU concept to increase capacity
• Optimize/reduce on-board information systems to reduce purchase and operation costs
• Develop a hybrid version for a last mile without overhead catenary
• Improve on-board sensoring to reduce rolling stock and infrastructure maintenance efforts (more predictive)

We will certainly see many more ideas floating around Innotrans. We are very curious to learn what they will finally implement.