The World Congress on Railway Research is the worlds’ leading international event focussing on railway research, developments and innovation. Every two to three years, it brings together more than a thousand of railway researchers and the users of research from across the world to share the latest developments in rail R&D and discuss how to accelerate their deployment. Research papers from around the world are selected by an international committee to be presented at each congress. These papers represent a cross-section of the work being undertaken in the many different countries, covering all aspects of railway engineering, operations, management and policy.The formation of WCRR took place at a railway research and development workshop in Tokyo in 1992. Since then, there have been 12 congresses across the world with Tokyo, Japan hosting the 2019 one.
Guiding policies for the WCRR
SPARK is happy to make the abstracts and papers from these conferences available to its users. Using the map below you can browse the papers from the various congresses; or view all papers.
The theme for the 2016 WCRR conference in Milan was Research and Innovation from Today Towards 2050
In 1997 1,562 participants attended WCRR in Florence, Italy to discuss the main theme of "Future railways need to halve costs, double productivity and remain environmentally friendly"
The fourth WCRR was held in Tokyo, Japan in October 1999. The theme for this year was "New technologies create new opportunities for the railways and society of the 21st century". Read more...
WCRR in 2001 was held in Cologne, Germany with the same theme as the previous congress in Tokyo: "New technologies create new opportunities for the railways and society of the 21st century".
More than 600 participants attending WCRR 2003 in Edinburgh, Scotland to discuss the main theme of "From birth to renaissance".
The 7th World Congress was held in June 2006, in Montreal, Canada with the theme of "Progressing together".
In May 2008 the 8th WCRR was held in Seoul, South Korea under the theme of "Towards a global railway".
Lille, France was the setting for the 9th WCRR in May 2011. The theme was "meeting the challenges for future mobility".
The 2016 WCRR event was held in Sydney in November under the theme "Keeping ahead of the curve through the sharing of knowledge".
