**1. Introduction**

Change is the permanent situation we live in, driven by the double transition we are in the midst of, centred on climate neutrality and digital leadership. According to the European Industrial Strategy, the industrial transformation is articulated around three drivers: global competition, climate neutrality and digital future [1].

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of digitalisation and the need to accelerate the progress of technological innovations developed to date [2]. This situation, on the one hand, has pushed SMEs towards digitalisation and, on the other hand, pushes all of us towards the need to recover and build a resilient - and sovereign - industry for Europe. This is why it is important to build on the progress that has been made in the sector towards its digital transformation [3].

The rail sector is one of the most energy-efficient modes of transport as it has significant advantages compared to other modes of transport. Being responsible for 9% of passenger transport and 7% of freight transport [4], it accounts for less than 0.4% of the GHG emissions of the entire transport sector. Rail is set to be a key driver for the decarbonisation of the transport industry [5].

Additionally, after the COVID-19 crisis, a global recovery of the rail supply market is expected with a growth of 3% per year until 2027, reaching an annual volume of approximately 211 billion euros in 2027 [3]. For all these reasons, we can define the railway sector as a technological, efficient and sustainable sector.

The chapter provides an analysis identifying the needs and obstacles that SMEs face in implementing advanced technologies in their organisations, which enable them to increase their digitalisation level in order to improve their services, production processes and products. The analysis has received funding from the European Union's Competitiveness of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (COSME) programme under the Grant Agreement number: 101037897 — STARS — COS-STRAT-2020-3-05.

STARS project aims to boost SMEs in terms of production performances and innovation capabilities as well as sustainability and green transition thanks to the uptake of advanced technologies that can make the change possible. Advanced technologies have proven to give competitive advantages and definitely will build the "Future Mobility". Several technologies that will drive the future of the Railway and Multimodality industrial meta-ecosystem are: Advanced Manufacturing, Advanced Materials, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, cloud computing, augmented/ virtual reality and IoT, among others.

The following sections of this chapter describe on the one hand the state of the art and on the other hand the survey design and the methodology. This data was extracted on 27 June 2022 and has been processed to perform the classification and analysis of the SMEs depending on the needs and obstacles shown.

STARS priority lies in the recovery, transition and resilience of passenger and freight mobility to overcome, adapt and boost the several challenges that Europe is facing; to name a few: (1) transition in public mobility of passengers to respond to the megatrends of urbanisation (need to move growing numbers of people in urban areas), (2) the ageing population (need to make stations, vehicles and the whole travel experience accessible to people with reduced mobility), (3) changes in users and transport behaviour (need to adapt to the needs and aspirations of end users, seamless intermodality, etc.), (4) rail freight as the backbone of European logistics, as set out in the EU Green Deal and the new EU Strategy on Sustainable and Smart Mobility and (5) promoting and completing the green transition in our sector.
