PRESS RELEASE OF VPI Hamburg
The gamechanger for rail freight transport is up and running!
1,250 participants found out about the status of the DAC introduction at the digital event on 11 January 2022.
“Rolling out the DAC across Europe is a thick board. We have managed the first centimetres”. With these words, Chairman Malte Lawrenz welcomed the participants of the 12th VPI Symposium “Digital Automatic Coupling” (DAC) in Hamburg. He referred to last year’s agreement on a uniform European coupling standard, the anchoring of the DAC in the coalition agreement of the German government and the work of the European DAC Delivery Programme (EDDP) in Brussels. More than 1,250 participants had joined the symposium via livestream – a record number. Interest in the event was also high in non-German-speaking countries: more than half of the audience followed the symposium in simultaneous English translation.
A dozen experts, all members of the EDDP, reported at the digital event on the state of the European DAC discussion in the fields of “technology”, “migration”, “costs/benefits” and “financing” and presented current results of initiatives such as the DAC4EU demonstrator train.
With the event, the VPI offered the sector the opportunity to ask questions to the EDDP representatives. Keepers, shippers and rail transport companies were particularly interested in aspects of migration and financing, but also in safety issues in the transport of dangerous goods.
“The symposium was definitely worthwhile for everyone involved,” said Jens Engelmann, EDDP Programme Manager, at the end of the event. Not only were the stakeholders happy to answer questions, but conversely, they also took important clarification topics back to Brussels, which will be taken into account in the design of the complex implementation process.
The 12th VPI Symposium took place this year in cooperation with the VPI Austria as well as with important DAC institutions at the European level: European DAC Delivery Programme, DACcelerate and Shift2Rail.
In an interview on Journalistico.de, Malte Lawrence talks about the current status of the DAC project, how much higher productivity will be with DAC and what hurdles there are to overcome until then.
