Siemens to equip Danish rail fleet with digital radio technology

Siemens has been commissioned by Danish railway infrastructure operator Banedanmark to equip 840 rail vehicles with GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communication Railways) technology. “The digital mobile radio system GSM-R has established itself as the international standard for on-board communication and is one of the key components of the Danish railway network’s cross-border traffic to Germany and Sweden,” said Juergen Brandes, CEO of the Siemens Rail Automation Business Unit. The vehicles will be duly equipped by the beginning of 2015. The order volume is worth around 20 million euros.

The GSM-R solution from Siemens enables the continuous transmission of movement authorities between control centers and trains on the rail network. Equipping trains with the international mobile radio standard GSM-R is one of the prerequisites for enabling railway personnel to communicate across national borders. The operation of analog, national systems will be phased out. The contract also includes training of the customer’s personnel in the use of the new technology. The components will be manufactured at the Siemens factory in Poole in the UK.

The modernization of rolling stock with GSM-R radio devices is part of a Danish government program to renew the nation’s entire railway signaling infrastructure by 2020, with the aim of increasing the capacity and reliability of overall railway operations. This is the largest and most comprehensive modernization project of its kind ever to be undertaken in Europe, for which a total of 3.2 billion euros has been made available.

Banedanmark previously commissioned Siemens in 2011 to equip the 170-kilometer-long, dual-track S-train line network in Copenhagen with an automatic train control system. The network uses Semi-Automated Train Operation (STO), which allows trains to run independently in fixed line sections at dynamicallyoptimized intervals, i.e. according to the moving block system. Large parts of the network are operated automatically and without lineside signals, but still call for driver involvement. This has made it possible to reduce train headways from 120 seconds to 90 seconds within the inner-city area.