"The Czech railway industry has been struggling with a shortage of students and quality professionals, among others in the field of signalling technology and telecommunications. The railway industry is 'competing' for these students with a number of other fields, and it is necessary to show that railway transport is an attractive field and has something to offer," says Minister of Transportation Martin Kupka.
The Dětenice Competence Centre is designed as an open learning platform where students will be able to try out a range of technologies and, with the help of AŽD experts, implement innovative projects that would be difficult to implement in other conditions.
In addition to a modern teaching hall with a capacity of 25 students, there is the possibility to work with the state-of-the-art DIGITAL 4.0 Unified Service Station with direct train path entry functionality and operation of outdoor elements.
This project is intended to further connect academia with the railway industry and create an environment where students, academics and practitioners will meet not only in standard teaching but also when working on development projects.
"Already today, we must educate experts who will be able to connect modern technology with infrastructure and logistics and at the same time respond to the challenges posed by topics such as autonomous mobility, high-speed railways and others. It is on these foundations that the idea of creating a joint railway competence centre between CTU Faculty of TransportationSciences and AŽD was born in 2022," says Professor Ondřej Přibyl, Dean of the Faculty.
The Dětenice Competence Centre is part of a broader project of an experimental line on which AŽD intends to further develop and test autonomous rail vehicles designed for a wide line with future use in real operation with passengers. Thanks to this activity, completely new systems of object and obstacle recognition, autonomous train guidance without the necessary human participation, precise vehicle positioning, ensuring the integrity of the train, solving incidents and degraded situations such as stopping in front of an obstacle, non-functionality of some parts of the system, remote train guidance, as well as other activities going beyond the autonomous vehicle itself, which are connected with the entire experimental line and possibly also with the development tasks of the competence centre, are being developed.
Zdeněk Chrdle, the CEO of AŽD, comments on the role of the investor and the implementer of this unique project: "The construction of the Competence Centre Dětenice is a significant project that will link the academic sphere with industry much more closely and will enable faster and deeper acquisition of new technologies by students, including their faster adaptation to positions in the business sphere. The students will have a unique opportunity to test the traffic management systems on a real line and in real operation, to get acquainted with advanced technologies and new principles that will be implemented on the Czech railway in the short future. AŽD invested more than 20 million crowns in the Competence Centre Dětenice without drawing any subsidies. It is a unique project which, according to our findings, is unparalleled in Europe. I would like to thank the Dean of Faculty of Transportation Sciences Ondřej Přibyl for his trust in the project and for the fact that together we have brought it to a successful conclusion."
In addition to the close cooperation with the Faculty, AŽD is beginning to cooperate intensively with other universities on the format of use. Currently, the project involves, among others, the Jan Perner Faculty of Transport Engineering of the University of Pardubice.
"I would also like to acknowledge the role of the Jan Perner Faculty of Transport Engineering of the University of Pardubice, which has joined the project. I can't forget the Railway Administration, which has just signed a memorandum of cooperation with Czech Technical University in Prague, the University of Pardubice and AŽD on this Czech experimental line and competence centre," adds Zdeněk Chrdle, AŽD CEO.
"I look forward to further collaboration involving students of all levels of study and experts from our faculty. The nearest joint project is the production of an inspection vehicle with autonomous driving and electric drive. I am really looking forward to these activities, which demonstrate that cooperation between industrial partners and academia is the way to prepare new generations of quality and motivated graduates," concludes Ondřej Přibyl, Dean of Faculty of Transportation Sciences.