However, noise and vibration (N&V) remain a major environmental challenge for the railway sector, since populations in the vicinity of railways no longer accept the increasing N&V annoyance, and a competitive railway transport system demands lower N&V emissions.

Although many promising initiatives have been launched to tackle the important challenges related to rail N&V emissions, there is still work to do and QuieterRail will address these challenges, aiming to introduce a step change in predicting and mapping railway noise and vibration, in the acceptance testing of rolling stock, and in promoting cost-effective noise mitigation.