The 2nd International Workshop on
“Artificial Intelligence for RAILwayS” in 2021 (AI4RAILS2021)
co-located with EURO 2021
11-14 July, 2021
Hybrid (Athens/online)
More info at: https://euro2021athens.com/hybrid/

The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques on industry has been so disruptive that it gave rise to a new wave of research and applications. Several industries, mainly in logistics and manufacturing, have benefited significantly from AI adoption and this positive trend is planned to be kept in the future. Modern and future railways represent one of the fields in which AI is expected to have a significant impact in a medium to long term perspective, in order to get higher levels of automation of railway processes. On the one hand, this opens for unprecedented scenarios for railway systems, and on the other hand, it also raises concerns regarding system dependability and new threats associated with a high level of autonomy.

Therefore, the first step towards the adoption of AI in the railway sector is understanding to what extent AI can be considered effective, reliable, safe and secure. In such a context, building upon the ongoing Shift2Rail project RAILS (Roadmaps for the AI integration in the raiL Sector), the aim of AI4RAILS is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss and share new perspectives, ideas, technologies and solutions for an effective and dependable integration of AI techniques in rail-based transport systems.

The program will include:

Keynote speaker(s) – to be announced
Presentation sessions
More information about EURO 2021 conference can be found at the conference webpage: https://euro2021athens.com/

Themes and goals
AI4RAILS workshop is addressing topics related to the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in railway transport. AI4RAILS is set to showcase AI opportunities over the holistic railway system including traffic planning and management, passenger mobility, predictive maintenance, autonomous driving, transport safety and policy, and including mainline and high-speed railways, metro, tram, and hyperloop. We welcome various applications of AI including machine learning, neural networks and reinforcement learning, evolutionary algorithms, computer vision and knowledge-based approaches in railway transport for both freight and passenger transport. Also, both pure AI models as well as hybrid models combining AI and optimization are foreseen.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

AI for rail traffic state predictions
AI for timetabling, rolling stock and crew scheduling
Real-time traffic and disruption management
Railway predictive maintenance and defect detection and prediction
Predicting passenger demand and flows
Data analytics for railway transport
Using AI for improving optimization models for planning and management
Using optimization for improving machine learning models
Transferability to railways of AI approaches from other sectors (e.g., aviation, road, etc.)
Novel problems enabled by AI techniques
Important dates
Session submission deadline: asap (contact the organizers directly)

Abstract submission deadline: 28th March 2021 (extended)

Author notification: 1st May, 2021

Conference presentation: July 11, 2021

Special issue submission deadline (optional): to be announced

Session submission
The AI4RAILS workshop provides an opportunity to organizing special sessions on related topics. If you are interested to organise a session within AI4RAILS please contact the workshop organizers directly by sending an email. In the email, please include a session title and a brief session abstract.

Abstract submission
Abstracts must be written in English and contain no more than 1,500 characters in plain text format (no formulas are allowed). Abstracts shall be submitted through the EURO2021 submission system at: https://www.euro-online.org/conf/euro31/

When submitting your abstract, please use the workshop code dd6e72c0 under Abstract in an organized session.

If you have any questions or doubts, do not hesitate to contact the organisers by email.

Special issue
Presenters at the AI4RAILS will be invited to submit the complete versions of their manuscripts to a special issue in a high-level transport/AI journal. More detailed information about the journal title and deadlines will be announced soon.

Workshop organizers
Rob Goverde, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Nikola Bešinović, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Egidio Quaglietta, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Zhiyuan Lin, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Official contact email: rails.project@outlook.com

More information about EURO 2021 conference can be found at the conference webpage: https://euro2021athens.com/. Please note the message from the organizers of the conference: