AbstractA modal shift to rail is crucial to achieving a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, relieving urban congestion and providing increased mobility. In order to successfully meet this growing demand for efficient and green mobility, the railway sector needs to progress in terms of quality of service, energy and life cycle costs, interoperability, capacity, noise reduction and must also further develop its carbon emission advantages.Roll2Rail is a research project which aims to develop key technologies that will overcome hurdles to innovation in rolling stock development and forms part of a longer term strategy towards revolutionising the rolling stock of today. The results will contribute to the increase of operational reliability and to the reduction of the life cycle costs. This project started in May 2015 and it is supported by the Horizon2020 programme of the European Commission (www.roll2rail.eu). Roll2Rail is one of the so called “lighthouse projects” of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking and will contribute to Innovation Programme 1. At the end of the project the outcomes will be incorporated into real vehicles or relevant environments within the Technical Demonstrators of Shift2Rail.In particular, Roll2Rail focuses on technological innovations in different subsystems of the vehicles which, individually, each and all together, contribute to achieve the desired impact at vehicle and whole railway system level on capacity, reliability, efficiency, comfort and life cycle costs. The project expects innovations in 8 different areas such as traction and power electronics, train communications, car bodyshell, running gear technologies, brakes, train interiors, noise and vibration and energy performance. Moreover, this project will deliver a set of technical recommendations and proposals of standardisation. Details on the concept, activities to be performed and first results are presented in this paper.