The 2018 Joint Rail Conference [From the Guest Editors]

The 2018 Joint Rail Conference (JRC) was held at the Omni William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 18–20 April. This year, the 2018 JRC was led by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Land Transportation Di vision, chaired by IEEE VTS Vice President David Thurston. The theme for this year was “Innovations That Move Commerce and People” to high light the multidisciplinary event covering both freight and passenger rail transports. Also, the conference schedule was slightly different from the usual order, starting with the welcome luncheon on 18 April and concluding with two special technical tours on the morning of 20 April. The welcome luncheon featured a plenary speech by Prof. Piervincenzo Rizzo of the University of Pittsburgh as a contribution from the local academic institution. Technical sessions began in the afternoon of 18 April. The technical program was organized into ten tracks with more than 100 papers covering a wide spectrum of technical interests: ■ Track 1: Railroad Infrastructure Engineering ■ Track 2: Rail Equipment Engineering ■ Track 3: Signal and Train Control Engineering ■ Track 4: Service Quality and Op erations Research ■ Track 5: Planning and Development ■ Track 6: Safety and Security ■ Track 7: Energy Efficiency and Sustainability ■ Track 8: Urban Passenger Rail Transport ■ Track 9: Electrification ■ Track 10: Vehicle Track Interaction. With various topics from technical fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and civil engineering, the conference had more than 100 papers presented by authors from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Moroc co, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. More than 150 people registered for the conference, making its turnout better than expected. As such, paper presentations were organized with up to six concurrent technical sessions. Most electrical engineering papers were presented in Tracks 3 and 9, yet there were papers in Tracks 6 and 7 that also involved technologies and applications that would be interesting to readers IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine. For example, a paper in Track 6, “Improving Beamforming Technique for Ultrasonic Rail Detect Imaging,” addressed techniques similar to those used in wireless com munication. Also, two papers in Track 7, “WMATA Wayside Energy Storage Demonstration Project” and “Tri-Met MAX Energy Storage Substation—Updates on Commissioning Optimization and Operating Experience,” could have been accepted to be presented in Track 9 as well. Thurston arranged a very special conference banquet at PNC Park, which is the baseball stadium for the Pittsburgh Pirates. A guided tour of FiGure 1 the Pnc Park media room tour.