Radiolabs at the Mid-Term Review and Workshop for the European VICE4RAIL Project
Rome, June 11, 2026 – The first workshop of the European VICE4RAIL project took place at the Hotel Harry’s Bar Trevi in centre of Rome, alongside the Mid-Term Review, which approved the progress of the project – the first in Europe dedicated to the validation and certification of GNSS technologies for the new train positioning system to be integrated into the ERTMS system.
This event brought together all members of the consortium, along with representatives of the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), confirming the strong relevance of the project at European level. Funded under the Horizon Europe programme, the project is coordinated by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), which leads the activities of a consortium composed of nine European partners: RFI, Radiolabs, Italcertifer, Bureau Veritas Italia, CEDEX, University of Pardubice, Université Gustave Eiffel, Sogei and SNCF.
VICE4RAIL involves nine European partners: RFI, Radiolabs, Italcertifer, Bureau Veritas Italia, CEDEX, the University of Pardubice, Université Gustave Eiffel, Sogei, and SNCF, representing a broad collaboration among industry, research, and certification bodies.
Radiolabs is contributing to the development of the validation environment with the new HyVICE platform designed to process both real data recorded on the Bologna San Donato railway line by RFI, and high-fidelity simulations produced in the lab. HyVICE addresses the railway sector’s priority of reducing field tests, which would otherwise be very costly, in order to assess the performance of the real system in the multiple scenarios it has to operate in. The data produced by HyVICE is then processed by the CEDEX laboratory in Madrid to evaluate the performance of the ERTMS system.
During the event, Francesco Rispoli Director General of Radiolabs has moderated a public Round Table aiming to encourage discussion with stakeholders and players in the railway and space sectors. The debate focused on the need to create a European-level Operations Center and on maximizing the synergies between VICE4RAIL and the R2DATO project of the Europe’s Rail program.
Among the institutional contributions, Daniel Lopour Senior Market Development Officer at EUSPA, Fabio Senesi, Director of Research and Development at RFI, Vincent Tardif, Leader of the software development team of the ERTMS French Laboratory, Luca Bocciolini, Director of the Florence Territorial Unit of Italcertifer, Gabriele Ridolfi from the ERTMS User Group (EUG), Alessandro Basili from Bureau Veritas Italia S.p.A., providing a strategic perspective on the integration of satellite technologies within the European railway system. The discussion also involved key stakeholders and end users, including Gianluigi Lauro from Hitachi Rail and Mauro Cardone from ASI – Italian Space Agency, presenting the RAN – National Augmentation Network project. Everyone confirmed their shared interest in continuing the ongoing developments to integrate satellite technologies into the ERTMS system.
