Connected and self-driving vehicles are on the horizon. Autonomous taxis and minibuses could cover the last mile between homes and public mass transit and long-distance transport hubs, helping make private cars superfluous in cities and relieving congestion. In rail transport as well, fully automated systems and connectivity can help satisfy the rapidly growing demand for mobility. Making vehicles and infrastructure more intelligent can ensure better availability and make mobility safer. All this adds up to vastly improved urban environments.Siemens is working with municipalities, public transit authorities and research institutes to develop these transport concepts.
Siemens Mobility
delivers 90 Velaro
MS high-speed trains (ICE 3neo) for Deutsche Bahn. The first train of the
ICE 3neo fleet started passenger service on December 5, 2022, just two
and a half years after the first order.
Estonian Railways (Eesti Raudtee) and Siemens Mobility – GRK Rail
Consortium signs a large-scale contract to modernize the railways in Estonia.Estonian Railways has initiated a very ambitious investment plan which
will take the service quality, traffic management and safety of its rail infrastructure
to a new level by 2030. Between 2020 and 2024 it plans to upgrade the safety
systems on six lines of the rail network and upgrade approximately 50 stations
across the country. To deliver this modernization of the rail safety systems
(CCS), the contract is worth over € 115 million.The agreement on modernizing the safety systems paves the way for
migrating the entire rail network to the European signalling standard, the
European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS / ETCS) in the future. The
agreement relates to the first and second phases of the modernization plan.
Migrating to ERTMS/ETCS is subject to the third phase.
Siemens Mobility has been awarded a major contract in the United Kingdom. London Underground (LUL), a subsidiary of Transport for London, responsible for the urban rail system in Britain's capital, signed a contract with Siemens Mobility to design and build 94 new generation Tube trains worth around €1.5 billion GBP (1.54 billion Euro) to replace the existing 1970s fleet. The trains will serve the Piccadilly line and delivery will begin in 2025.The new metro trains for London will significantly increase capacity and throughput on the Piccadilly line. The new spacious Piccadilly line trains are based on Siemens Mobility's Inspiro family of metro trains and offer passengers substantially improved passenger experience.As part of a fleet services contract, Siemens Mobility will be responsible for covering the supply of spares for a period of five years beginning with the commissioning of the first trains. Siemens Mobility will also provide whole life technical support for the trains when they are out of their general warranty. Additionally, LUL has ordered digital services based on Siemens Mobility's Railigent.
Since
October 2019, Siemens Mobility and ViP (Verkehrsbetrieb Potsdam GmbH) have been
jointly researching a fully automated tram depot. One year before, the
cooperation partners presented a test vehicle of an autonomous tram at
InnoTrans 2018. On this basis, the consortium started further research together
with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Institute for Climate
Protection, Energy and Mobility (IKEM) and Codewerk GmbH. The market readiness
of the autonomous tram in the depot is planned for 2026.The three-year project called “AStriD” (Autonomous Tram in Depot) is funded by the Federal Ministry for Transportation and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) as part of its “Modernity Fund” (mFUND) research initiative.
The breath-taking rise of Bangkok to become a leading business center in Asia created a basic challenge for the city to ensure the mobility of millions of people. Before 1999, people used to take a bus, motorcycle or taxi for almost 80 per cent of their daily travel needs. This created congestion in large parts of Bangkok's infrastructure, making traffic jams a daily occurrence. The travel speed in downtown Bangkok was usually less than ten kilometers per hour. This not only affected the mobility of the commuters but had also an impact on the quality of life. Without a working rapid transit and mainline traffic concept, Thailand's capital was bound to grind to a standstill.
Labeled as the project of the century for the German metropolitan region, the Rhine-Ruhr express (RRX) will help alleviate the continuously worsening transportation issues along the Rhine and Ruhr from 2018. The municipalities involved in the new RRX rail transport concept commissioned Siemens to supply 82 electric multiple units, type Desiro HC, and to provide maintenance services for a period of 32 years. With a total volume of more than 1.7 billion euros, this is the largest regional rail service order in Germany so far for Siemens.The region is one of the largest conurbations in Europe, with a population of approximately ten million and numerous transit routes. On the main section between Cologne and Dortmund in particular, mobility has been heavily restricted for years now by overstretched public transport networks and train connections. Through a targeted extension of the railway network and the shift of traffic from road to rail this enables, the RRX is expected to replace roughly 31,000 individual car trips every working day. The first RRX trains will begin operating punctually with the change of the rail system's timetable on December 9, 2018. Commercial operation will begin on Line RE 11 that connects Düsseldorf, Essen, Dortmund, Hamm, Paderborn and Kassel. During rush hours the eventual target is one train every 15 minutes.
Bane NOR, the state-owned agency responsible for the Norwegian national railway infrastructure, has contracted Siemens to upgrade the signaling equipment of the entire Norwegian rail network to the European Train Control System (ETCS). Commissioning of the rollout lines is scheduled to be completed by 2034. The contract also includes services for 25 years and is worth around 800 million euros in total.