Zhiyuan Lin

Staff User

Second AI4RAILS Workshop

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The 2nd International Workshop on “Artificial Intelligence for RAILwayS”(AI4RAILS)

co-located with EURO 2021

11-14 July, 2021

Athens, Greece

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.

More details can be found at: https://rails-project.eu/ai4rails/

AI4RAILS 2020 goes online

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AI4RAILS – Call for Papers

1st International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for RAILwayS
co-located with the 16th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC2020)
September 7, 2020

AI4RAILS 2020 has moved to digital mode due to pandemic COVID-19.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Since the workshop will not be held in-site there
will be no registration fees!

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/ai4rails

The International Workshop on ?Artificial Intelligence for RAILwayS?
(AI4RAILS) is the first workshop specifically addressing topics
related to the adoption of Artificial Intelligence technologies in
railway applications. Supported by the Shift2Rail project RAILS,
AI4RAILS 2020 is the first of a series of workshops intended as a
reference forum for international researchers and industry
practitioners providing their novel ideas, results and experiences on
smart-railways in the general context of intelligent transportation
systems.

The aim of the 1st AI4RAILS workshop is to provide a forum for
researchers, practitioners and business leaders to discuss and share
new perspectives, ideas, technologies and solutions for effective and
dependable integration of AI techniques in rail-based transportation
systems.

More information, submission guidelines and contacts are available at
the workshop website.

***Topics***
AI4RAILS invites researchers, practitioners and business leaders to
present and discuss their latest research results on theory,
approaches and tools for design, development, operation and
maintenance of smart-railways by means of AI techniques.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
– AI for railway safety, availability, reliability and security
– Transferability to railways of AI approaches from other sectors
(e.g., avionics, automotive, etc.)
– Autonomous and cooperative train driving, including virtual coupling
– Automatic detection of railway signals and obstacles
– Railway predictive maintenance and defect detection
– AI for rail traffic planning and management
– Adversarial perturbations to AI with a focus on railway case-studies
– Resource allocation with a focus on railway case-studies
– Run-time model checking and AI with a focus on railway case-studies
– Explainable and trustworthy AI in railway applications
– Safe autonomy standards and railway certification of compliance
– Railway datasets and real-world case studies

***Submission and Publication***
AI4RAILS 2020 invites original paper not submitted elsewhere,
presenting original contribution. Papers must be in English, up to 12
pages in Springer format, including references and appendices. Paper
submission instructions and publication details are available on the
workshop website.

The AI4RAILS proceedings will be published to Springer Communications
in Computer and Information Science (CCIS).
Distinguished papers will be invited to submit an extended version in
a dedicated Special Issue on high ranked journals.

***Important Dates***
Regular paper submission:  June 1, 2020
Authors notification: June 29, 2020
Camera-ready paper due: July 10, 2020

***Workshop Chairs***
Valeria Vittorini, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Francesco Flammini, Mälardalen University & Linnaeus University, Sweden
Roberto Nardone, University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy
Stefano Marrone, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

We organize a session at the 2020 INFORMS Annual Meeting

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We organize a session Machine Learning in railroad transportation at the 2020 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Washington, USA (http://meetings2.informs.org/wordpress/nationalharbor2020/). Some of the topics interesting for the session are scheduling, traffic and mobility predictions, maintenance. If you wish to present your research, please contact Nikola Besinovic (n.besinovic@tudelft.nl).

The submission includes a short abstract (100 words). The deadline for submitting abstracts is 1 June.

In addition, the complete overview of railway sessions is here: https://connect.informs.org/railway-applications/new-item2/new-item

Media: Article about RAILS published on ERCIM News

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We have an article about the RAILS project published on ERCIM News, the magazine of ERCIM (The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics) that reports on joint actions of the ERCIM partners, and aims to reflect the contribution made by ERCIM to the European Community in Information Technology.

You can find the full article (“Roadmaps for AI Integration in the Rail Sector – RAILS”) here:

https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en121/r-i/roadmaps-for-ai-integration-in-the-rail-sector-rails

News: PhD Studentship on Artificial Intelligence for Railway Operations and Management

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Type of research degree: PhD
Application deadline: Ongoing
Country eligibility: UK/EU (full) or International (only covering tuition fees)
Funding: Funded (UK/EU) or partially funded (international)
Supervisors
Prof Ronghui Liu and Dr Zhiyuan Lin
School
Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK (with up to 1 year exchange opportunity at TU Delft, the Netherlands)

There is an exciting opportunity for a motivated student with research interests in optimisation, AI and their applications in transport planning.

Project description:

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in innovative approaches in artificial intelligence for railway scheduling and operations, to be based in Institute for Transport Studies at University of Leeds. The position is an opportunity to combine cutting-edge research at the intersection of railway scheduling and artificial intelligence techniques such as machine learning, neural networks. The overall objective of the PhD research project is to investigate the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the rail sector and contribute to the definition of roadmaps for future research in operational intelligence and network management. In particular, the student will develop and compare different AI approaches, e.g. machine learning, deep and reinforcement learning, for railway traffic planning and management. He or she will have a chance to investigate using AI for solving combinatorial optimization problems, AI for supporting optimization models, with special focus on the optimization models for railway operations and management.

This PhD research forms part of the RAILS project, funded by EU Shift2Rail and in collaboration with other European universities from Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. The student will have the opportunity to work with the academic leads from these institutions, including spending up to one year at Digital Rail Traffic Lab at TU Delft (www.tudelft.nl/drtlab). The project is suitable for a student with a top MSc (preferable) or first-class bachelor’s degree in artificial intelligence, transport, computer science, operational research (optimisation), mathematics, physics, or a subject of highly quantitative nature. Previous coursework or experiences in at least one of the above areas is necessary. A strong programming background will be essential for this project. Prior experiences in one or more of the following areas is desirable but not mandatory: supervised machine learning in transport prediction, transport timetabling/scheduling, and applying artificial intelligence in theoretical or real-world combinatorial optimisation problems.

To apply for the scholarship, please visit https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/transport-research-degrees/doc/apply-2. For informal enquiries about the position, please contact Professor Ronghui Liu (R.Liu@its.leeds.ac.uk) or Dr Zhiyuan Lin (Z.Liu@leeds.ac.uk) with a short summary of your background and research interests in the technical themes mentioned above.

More information about this post can be found at:
https://phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/504-phd-studentship-on-artificial-intelligence-for-railway-operations-and-management 

News: The project kick-off meeting

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The project kick-off meeting took place on 30th January 2020 at CINI, Naples, Italy. 22 people coming from 5 different countries (Italy, Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Hungary) participated in the meeting and related social events, including representatives from the host organization, project partners and industry advisory board members.

Universities:

IT: CINI, NL: TU Delft, SE: Linnaeus, UK: Leeds

Industry:

IT: Comesvil, Hitachi Rail STS, the MathWorks, Syenmaint

HU: NextTechnologies