Putting rail freight transport on a digital track
The European Commission has set a target to increase rail freight transport in Europe 50 % by 2030. To achieve this goal, Europe’s freight operations need a digital revamp. One of the critical areas for increasing the productivity, capacity and reliability of European rail freight is digitised and automated rail freight, which includes the large-scale implementation of Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC). This technology could help shift Europe’s freight transport from road to rail and allow railways to enter new or re-enter lost market segments. Preparing trains requires brake testing, car inspection and overall train preparation, and as most operations are still carried out manually this can take two to three hours on average. “DAC will increase efficiency through automation processes in marshalling yards and terminals, and enable further innovations, such as ensuring sufficient energy supply for certain applications and safety data communication throughout the train,” explains Peter Perstel, business development and program manager of rail systems at Virtual Vehicle Research and consortium leader on the EU-funded DACcelerate project. DACcelerate aimed to directly support the European DAC Delivery Programme (EDDP) by creating strategies and guidelines needed to bring this new technology to fruition. “DACcelerate provided the most comprehensive documentation of the current status of DAC,” says Jens Engelmann, founder and CEO of railiable, DACcelerate team member and EDDP co-programme manager. “On the basis of this information, deployment strategies and cost-benefit analyses can now be conducted.” This project provided the resources to successfully run the EDDP with its 80-odd companies and nearly 300 participants involved.
Automating freight operations
One example of DAC’s potential is the automatic brake test for the whole train, which will reduce the time needed to carry out this operation from up to an hour down to just a few minutes. “DAC also provides the train composition in an electronic form and will enable, in the future, automatic technical wagon inspection,” notes Perstel. “It will deliver the so-called ‘train integrity’ function also for freight trains,” which continuously monitors train connectivity. “This all leads to enormous reductions in process times,” Perstel adds.
Networking to speed up DAC adoption
Through the DACcelerate project, team members engaged experts and European policymakers at EU and Member State levels. They illustrated the future technology required for bringing DAC to fruition, and established a framework to identify potential bottlenecks. Through close collaboration with stakeholders, DACcelerate created strategies, methods and guidelines for a successful and cost-efficient transition to fully automated and digitised rail freight transport. All project goals were achieved successfully. The project also developed technical specifications for DAC and the energy and data system, and selected a final DAC type for European adoption. In addition, DACcelerate contributed to further scientific insights into the operational and societal benefits of DAC.
The future of digital rail
After the success of DACcelerate, the EU is preparing to award a grant to continue the work under a new project, DACcord. “The project shall prepare the necessary further migration steps and the concepts for an institutional set-up of a deployment management entity, so that the transformation of European rail freight can start around 2028,” says Perstel.
Keywords
DACcelerate, freight, train, manual, automatic, DAC, brake, testing, operations, future, digital, rail
