traffic
Premiere in Hamburg: First digital S-Bahn started
Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher switches to fully automatic mode at the push of a button, alongside train driver Valeska Hoop. Photo: Marcus Brandt / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A highly automated S-Bahn is presented in Hamburg. The project is part of the “Digital Rail Germany” project.
Deutsche Bahn and the technology group Siemens celebrated a world premiere on Monday: For the first time, a fully automatic, digitally controlled S-Bahn started in Hamburg.
Railway boss Richard Lutz announced that the technology will be gradually expanded to the entire S-Bahn network of the Hanseatic city in the future. According to Siemens boss Roland Busch, it is a “blueprint for the digitization of the railways in Germany, Europe and around the world”.
Autonomous railways have been around for a long time. What is new is the open system, which is compatible with every railway that masters the technical standards.
The project is part of the “Digital Rail Germany” project, with which Deutsche Bahn intends to bring its infrastructure into the digital age by the next decade. A highly automated S-Bahn operation allows, according to the representation of the railway, a significantly tighter vehicle cycle on the rails and also helps to reduce energy consumption and operating costs.
The “Digital S-Bahn Hamburg” project is financed with around 60 million euros in equal parts by Hamburg, Deutsche Bahn and Siemens. It is to be later expanded to the entire S-Bahn network of the Hanseatic city. Throughout Germany, a large part of the trains and routes in local and long-distance traffic could be upgraded in this way by the 2030s.