An interview with Alessandro Vecchi new RADIUS project coordinator

November 11, 2022

Alessandro Vecchi is our new project coordinator. He was appointed just in time to organise the interim review meeting, where we discussed his views on the project.

What is your background?

Ny name is Alessandro Vecchi,

After completing my studies in Mechanical Engineering at Università degli Studi di Genova, I started my professional journey at FIAT Research Center in Torino, working as an innovation engineer in the Diesel engine development department, focusing my experience mainly on after–treatment systems, in the field of technology development and testing, and control function development for ECUs.

I joined the Hitachi Rail family in the early 2019, firstly in the system engineering group, taking over the integration of Diesel fired electric power generator units in all of the Hitachi Rail fleet.

Last year I joined the Research & Innovation group, managing innovative projects for railway infrastructure monitoring and, very recently, the coordination of the RADIUS project

What is you view on the RADIUS project?

RADIUS is an everyday engaging experience and a knowledge improvement leading challenge for the many players involved in it.

UAS technology integration within railway environment, enabling advanced infrastructure monitoring functions and automating specific maintenance activities, focuses on the coexistence of two very different realities and on new engineering solutions for their integration.

Leaving behind of us the first period of the project, in which the system architecture has been defined and its requirements formalized, we are now facing the engineering phase of the project – prototypes shaping and integration – which will allow us to walk in the core of our activities – the real life environment test phase – to demonstrate that the vision and all concepts behind RADIUS designed and developed up to now can introduce us to a new sight for railway infrastructure management.

We supported and pursued our goals during a very difficult period for everyone, reinventing new ways of working during the COVID 19 pandemic, which marked the last years of our lives.

I sincerely thank all my teammates: it is only thank to their high commitment and professional skills that RADIUS has been able to go on its path without any delay or hitch until today.

You were appointed just a few weeks before the interim review meeting. Was it a challenge?

The Interim Review Meeting, held in the gorgeous location of Lisbon, more than a professional dutyy -even with excellent outputs, has been the glad occasion, after almost two years of virtual contacts, to meet each other personally and share our experiences, ideas and proposals to wrap up the project in the best possible way.

A special mention, on behalf of the whole team, is to our mate and colleague Fernando who, although defeated by a severe disease, never stopped believing in our joined vision and helping all of us in a very hard moment for him.

Any final words?

If you all allow me now a joke out of my duties, taking Megara's words out from my own pocket, "non est ad astra mollis e terris via" (L.A. Seneca, Hercules furens): In the challenge to reach our stars departing from a running train, we are in the good fellowship of GALILEO.