Modernizing of the Rail Transport Curriculum and Study Process

Abstract

In recent years, the European Commission has raised the question of how to improve the market position of rail transport. The key success factors beyond the development of rail transport infrastructure are safety (control and command systems of rail traffic), opening the rail transport market to competition and improving the interoperability. A holistic approach to these issues will certainly help to solve the complex problems, but more attention at present should be paid to the development of railway education, including professional higher education. The modernized curricula and more integrated competences are definitely important factors for improving the position of railway transport in the future. In this paper, the authors analyse the current situation of the railway education in Central Baltic region (incl. Finland, Estonia, Latvia) and discuss the new concepts and designs of a more harmonized and less fragmented railway education curricula. In the authors’ opinions, these results can be used to promote railway education more widely. The paper also focuses on the experience of using simulation environment in study process. The paper is based on the study reports of the Interreg Central Baltic Programme 2014–2020 Project EDU-RAIL-Harmonized and Modernized Multidisciplinary Railway Education, Interreg Programme for Central Baltic [8].