Pods4Rail at InnoTrans 2026
pods4Rail at the InnoTrans 2026
Pods4Rail Project Concludes:
Laying the Groundwork for a Supermodal Future in European Mobility
The Pods4Rail project, a three-year research initiative funded by the European Union’s Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking, has officially concluded following its Final Event held on 24–25 June 2026 at Siemens AG Austria in Vienna. Launched in September 2023 with 15 partners from seven European countries, the project set out to address the fragmentation of today’s transport systems by developing a radically integrated approach to mobility.
Final Dissemination at InnoTrans 2026
As its last dissemination event, the Pods4Rail project brought a scaled model and a video to the Europe’s Rail stand at the 2026 InnoTrans fair in Berlin, held from 22–25 September. The 15th edition of the world’s leading trade fair for transport technology provided a fitting platform for the project’s final public showcase, allowing visitors to engage with the supermodal concept and explore the technical achievements of the three-year initiative .
The Pods4Rail vision centres on supermodality — a holistic concept that goes beyond traditional multimodal transport to create a seamless “Mobility as One Journey” experience. At its core are standardised, autonomous pods that can carry passengers or goods and transfer automatically between different transport modes, including rail, road, and cable car, without requiring passengers to disembark or cargo to be unloaded. The rail network serves as the high-capacity, energy-efficient backbone, while road transport extends reach into rural and underserved areas .
Over the course of the project, the consortium explored more than 20 potential applications and identified 8 business scenarios, ranging from on-demand passenger transport on underused secondary rail lines to logistics delivery and even modular pods configured as mobile clinics for emergency medical deployment . Key technical deliverables included basic design concepts for modular transport units, with variants developed for public passenger transport, premium services, persons with reduced mobility (PRM), and containerised cargo using standardised 5 ft, 10 ft, and 20 ft units .
The project’s findings were disseminated through major international platforms, including the Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2026 in Budapest and the 14th World Congress on Railway Research in Colorado Springs, where researchers presented studies on energy demand for intermodal pod systems and the broader societal value of modular transport .
While Pods4Rail has formally ended, the partners emphasised that the journey is far from over. “Pods4Rail has laid the groundwork for a supermodal future — one where mobility is smarter, greener, and truly integrated,” the consortium stated in its final event recap.
The Pods4Rail project was coordinated by Siemens Mobility GmbH and involved scientific partners including the German Aerospace Center (DLR),moodley, Siemens Mobility Hacon, Trafikverket, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, #Eurnex, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) , ProRail, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) GERS – Gustave Eiffel University, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen (UWB),RAILENIUM, Delft University of Technology from across Europe. It received nearly €3 million in funding through Horizon Europe and the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking .
For more information, visit www.pods4rail.eu.
About Pods4Rail:
Pods4Rail was a research project funded by the European Union’s Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking, running from September 2023 to June 2026. It explored the feasibility of a rail-based, fully automated supermodal mobility system for passengers and goods, based on standardised, scalable modular pods suitable for all transportation modes.
