rail
Digitization in freight transport should pick up speed
Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP, lr) with Daniela Gerd tom Markotten and Sigrid Nikutta from the DB Board before the test run of a freight train with digital automatic coupling. Photo: Fabian Sommer/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Europe is the last continent where freight trains are still coupled together by hand. With the digital automatic clutch, the EU now wants to change that quickly – and technically go one step further.
This Wednesday, Europe made a bit more progress in the digitization of freight transport. A test freight train made its way from Berlin Westhafen through Germany, Austria and Switzerland – fully equipped with the Digital Automatic Coupling (DAK).
It is regarded as a beacon of hope when it comes to the question of how freight transport by rail can be processed faster, more efficiently and, above all, more cheaply and how the climate goals in the transport sector can be met.
“In fact, Europe is the only continent that has not managed to introduce an automatic clutch over the past few decades,” said Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) on Wednesday when the train was adopted. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, we will change now.”
Only in Europe are freight cars still coupled together by hand as they were more than 100 years ago. To do this, a steel bracket weighing 20 kilograms has to be balanced and tightened over the hook of the next wagon. Hours can pass before an entire train is ready to depart.
With the DAK, this practice should run automatically in the future, a train should be coupled through within minutes. After decades of lagging behind, the industry wants to go one step further with a technical innovation: in future, a data cable is to connect all wagons with one another via the coupling. It is intended to convey information about content or weight. Freight trains could be put together even more efficiently.
But it will still be years before the DAC is in widespread use. The DAK train approved on Wednesday is part of a research project by Deutsche Bahn and five other companies from Austria and Switzerland. In the previous years, they had first tried out different types of couplers on test tracks and marshalling yards. The project is now entering the next phase. It should be completed by the end of this year.
“We could start introducing it as early as 2023 or 2024,” said Deutsche Bahn digital board member Daniela Gerd tom Markotten on Wednesday. By 2030, all of the almost 500,000 freight wagons in Europe could have been converted accordingly.
From Deutsche Bahn’s point of view, the prerequisite is that the EU creates the legal and financial framework by then. The conversion of the European wagon fleet could cost up to 8.6 billion euros. “Companies cannot do this alone,” emphasized Gerd tom Markotten.
The EU Commission representative in Berlin, Jörg Wojahn, was confident on Wednesday that the EU will create the technical and financial prerequisites for this goal in the course of the year. When it comes to the financial question, however, he also sees the individual states and industry as having an obligation. “It’s an investment that will pay off in the end,” said Wojahn on the sidelines of the meeting.