Rete Ferroviaria Italiana has put its first autonomous railway inspection vehicle on public display at InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin, on 23 September. The prototype, named TINO — Train for INspection Of railway — is designed to run each day before the first scheduled services, giving the infrastructure manager an early assessment of track conditions ahead of passenger operations.

The concept targets a concrete operational outcome: by sweeping the network before service starts, TINO aims to detect infrastructure faults and obstructions early, improving both safety and service reliability on RFI's network without adding inspection trains to the traffic path during operating hours.

TINO travels up to 400 km at a maximum speed of 200 km/h. It runs on a hybrid traction system and offers two operating modes — remote driving and fully autonomous driving — both supervised continuously by an ERTMS/ETCS safety layer that manages speed restrictions and triggers emergency braking automatically when required. RFI says this architecture keeps the driverless vehicle within conventional signalling safety boundaries rather than relying on an independent protection system.

The vehicle is a collaborative project between RFI Research and a group of Italian universities and research institutions, each responsible for a defined subsystem.

Politecnico di Milano's mechanical departments handled the mechanical design of the unit. Signalling capabilities came from the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Fondazione Bruno Kessler and Alma Mater Studiorum — Università di Bologna, building the interfaces that tie the vehicle into the ERTMS/ETCS framework.

The perception system, designed by the Università degli Studi di Firenze and the Università degli Studi di Salerno, carries out three functions along the railway corridor: detecting obstacles, classifying them and tracking them, while monitoring infrastructure conditions continuously. Integrated with the ATO driving system, the onboard perception software analyses detected objects and automatically assesses potential clearance infringements to confirm safe vehicle movement.

RFI presents TINO as the first vehicle of its kind. As with all prototype claims, the specification — 400 km range, 200 km/h maximum speed, dual operating modes — reflects the design targets stated at the exhibition rather than measured results from revenue-condition deployment, and the company has not yet published a timeline for series operation or network rollout.

The project signals a broader shift in how infrastructure managers approach predictive maintenance: instead of dedicating staffed measurement trains to night or off-path slots, operators in Italy and elsewhere are testing autonomous vehicles that can inspect at line speed under standard signalling protection. The economic case rests on reduced dependence on specialist crews and earlier fault detection before failures disrupt timetabled services.

RFI has not disclosed the programme budget or the number of units planned beyond the prototype. The next milestones to watch are the vehicle's first autonomous runs on the Italian network and any decision by RFI to move from the research consortium's prototype to operational deployment across its 16,000 km national network.