DAC: Uniform coupling head design selected throughout Europe

Scharfenberg design to win the race

On 21 Sep­tem­ber 2021, the EDDP Super­vi­so­ry Board made its choice of the future Euro­pe-wide stan­dard designs of the digi­tal auto­ma­tic cou­pler (DAC) for Euro­pean rail freight. With this, the body has taken a big step after an inten­si­ve test phase of almost one year. In the coming pha­ses, the defi­ni­ti­ve design of the sel­ec­ted cou­pler head will be deve­lo­ped. This will enable inter­ope­ra­bi­li­ty and ope­ra­tio­nal effi­ci­en­cy wit­hout licence fees.

What has happened so far

In a detail­ed test phase, the Euro­pean con­sor­ti­um Digi­tal Auto­ma­tic Cou­pling for Euro­pe (DAC4EU) had four pro­to­ty­pes of the DAC tes­ted accor­ding to a clear pro­ce­du­re and cata­lo­gue of cri­te­ria. Two Schar­fen­berg designs and one Schwab design from the deve­lo­p­ment labo­ra­to­ries of Dell­ner Cou­plers AB, Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA and Wab­tec Cor­po­ra­ti­on ended up as pro­to­ty­pes in the EDDP. This is fun­ded by the Euro­pean fun­ding pro­gram­me Shift2Rail (S2R). First, the EDDP defi­ned a cata­lo­gue of cri­te­ria for the sel­ec­tion pro­cess. Around 100 EDDP experts from 36 com­pa­nies with a strong rail con­nec­tion took part in the eva­lua­ti­on across Euro­pe. In sum­mer 2021, they exami­ned the results from the two test designs DAC4EU and Trafikverket/Swedish Win­ter Tests for each model. The Schar­fen­berg design final­ly emer­ged as the win­ner from the test phase.

Next steps

In the next stage, the manu­fac­tu­r­ers will pre­sent solu­ti­ons that meet fur­ther requi­re­ments. In addi­ti­on, they will deter­mi­ne the life cycle costs and show the fur­ther pro­ce­du­re on the way to series pro­duc­tion. The so-cal­led DAC demons­tra­tor train will be on dis­play in Ger­ma­ny, Aus­tria and Switz­er­land in the coming months. Here, fur­ther ope­ra­tio­nal tests with the new DAC clutch design will take place on site. The results of these will flow into the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment phases.

Improved railway competitiveness

If the DAC is suc­cessful­ly intro­du­ced, it will streng­then the com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness of Euro­pean and Swiss rail freight trans­port. With the help of new tech­no­lo­gies, it will increase the effi­ci­en­cy, capa­ci­ty uti­li­sa­ti­on and qua­li­ty of the freight rail­ways. In this way, it favours the modal shift to rail and beco­mes cen­tral to the ambi­tious cli­ma­te goals of Euro­pe and Switzerland.

The DAC makes the much-cited digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on and auto­ma­ti­on of the Euro­pean rail sys­tem a rea­li­ty. In doing so, it is hel­ping to increase the share of rail freight trans­port within the frame­work of mul­ti­mo­dal sys­tems in Euro­pe. Thanks to its power and data bus line throug­hout the train, the DAC not only opti­mi­ses the cou­pling pro­cess, but also other pro­ces­ses of ope­ra­ti­on and main­ten­an­ce. In par­ti­cu­lar, it allows train inte­gri­ty checks, which are con­side­red a pre­re­qui­si­te for the intro­duc­tion of the next gene­ra­ti­on of the Euro­pean Train Con­trol Sys­tem (ETCS Level 3).

DAC4EU

Mem­bers of the DAC4EU con­sor­ti­um are Deut­sche Bahn and its sub­si­dia­ry DB Cargo, the Swiss and Aus­tri­an freight rail­ways SBB Cargo and Rail Cargo Aus­tria as well as the wagon kee­pers Erme­wa, GATX Rail Euro­pe and VTG. The rese­arch pro­ject is fun­ded by the Ger­man Fede­ral Minis­try of Trans­port and Digi­tal Infra­struc­tu­re (BMVI) with around 13 mil­li­on euros and has been run­ning since June 2020 until Decem­ber 2022. The consortium’s goal is for trains to be equip­ped with DAC throug­hout Euro­pe by 2030. In this way, the new tech­no­lo­gy can con­tri­bu­te to rail freight trans­port in Euro­pe beco­ming the core of the future mobi­li­ty system.

S2R JU

The Shift2Rail Joint Under­ta­king (S2R JU) is the first Euro­pean rail initia­ti­ve to pro­mo­te tar­ge­ted rese­arch, inno­va­ti­on and mar­ket-ori­en­ted solu­ti­ons for rail sys­tems of the future in pas­sen­ger and freight trans­port. In doing so, it aims to pro­mo­te smart and sus­tainable growth and a cli­ma­te-neu­tral Euro­pe. In doing so, it tar­gets the life-cycle costs and effi­ci­en­cy of rail sys­tems. Through demons­tra­ti­on acti­vi­ties and the dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of rele­vant results for mar­ket deploy­ment, S2R JU aims to pro­mo­te the com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness of the Euro­pean rail indus­try while crea­ting a mul­ti­pli­er effect for Euro­pean Union (EU) finan­cial resour­ces. S2R JU is fun­ded by the EU’s Hori­zon 2020 programme.