Promoting the digitalization of rail by replacing conventional interlocking/fast-track programmes to speed up the roll-out of the ‘Digital Rail Germany’ (SLP)

The objective of the measure is to support the digitalization of railway in the context of the ‘Digital Rail Germany’ initiative and the ‘fast track’ programme to accelerate it. This initiative gathers public and private stakeholders (including the Federal Railway Authority (EBA), research and technical organizations and industry) in order to develop standardized, interoperable and modular components for the digitalization of railway operations.

The investment consists of funding seven pilot projects with solutions to replace old signal boxes and level crossing protection systems with new-generation digital security systems. The new solutions developed by these projects shall be compatible with the technical specifications of the ‘Digital Rail Germany’ programme. They are also expected to be upgradeable and compatible with a subsequent ETCS (European Train Control System) upgrade by means of uniform system interfaces.

Six pilot projects of the programme, aiming at developing solutions to replace old signal boxes and level crossing protection systems by security systems of the latest digital generation have been completed successfully, with validation in operational conditions for at least three of them, and validation in laboratory conditions for the others.

Beneficiaries have received grant support for the purchase of a total of 427,033 Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), 63 Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCEV) and 211,145 Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) with emissions of less than 50 g CO₂/km (period 1 July 2020 to 30 August 2022). Following an extension, the programme will run until 31 December 2024. 

More information can be found on the webpage of the project here

Top 100 recipients

• DB Netz AG