2023-06-09 14:07:45
AArrive, get on, drive off – this is the experience users of the underground in Hamburg should have in the future. The goal of the “U-Bahn 100” project is to be able to start a train every 100 seconds. This should improve comfort for passengers, but above all capacity should be increased by around 50 percent compared to the current level. On the way to this goal, the Hamburger Hochbahn has cleared an important hurdle and is now reporting the success of the test runs with the automated train.
However, it will be a while before the people of Hamburg can actually use the progress: the system will not be installed on the two particularly heavily frequented lines U2 and U4 until the end of 2026. Today, 90,000 people are already on the move east of Hamburg’s main train station in the direction of the Elbe bridges.
The subway trains will then move, accelerate, decelerate and stop completely independently. This is made possible by digital technology called “Moving Blocks”, which, in contrast to today, does not always keep the same safety distance between the vehicles, but can also implement short distances, depending on the situation, through interaction with the other trains.
The radio-based train protection and control called Trainguard comes from Siemens Mobility, while the trains are being digitized by Alstom. The investments amount to 200 million euros. Hamburg has applied for subsidies under the Municipal Transport Financing Act, which regulates the promotion of innovative transport projects.
Other cities also rely on automation
The technology is not new. Siemens cites Beijing, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires, but also Paris and London as examples where Trainguard has already proven itself. The challenge, as pointed out at Hamburger Hochbahn, is the conversion of the existing system. The Hamburg company, which was founded 112 years ago – incidentally with the participation of Siemens – is one of the oldest local transport companies in Germany. For Beijing, for example, where the subway network has only grown in recent years, a different technology can be used from the outset. Should Hamburg implement the planned U5 line, this would also be intended as an autonomous operation from the outset.
In one place in Germany, people are even much further – exactly where the first steam locomotive was once on the move: in Nuremberg, trains have been running autonomously since 2008. The higher investments were quickly compensated for by savings in personnel, it says there.
In Hamburg, however, the focus should not be on costs, it is about creating more capacity for the mobility turnaround, and Jens-Günter Lang, CTO at Hochbahn, explains the necessary comfort: “With a 5-minute cycle, I need as passenger no more timetable. A 100-second cycle means that I no longer have to run after the subway.”
#Automation #Hamburgs #subway #network #faster