SIEMENS Mobility has signed contracts worth a total of €270m with infrastructure manager Banedanmark and Danish State Railways (DSB) to respectively supply lineside and onboard equipment for the project to upgrade the Copenhagen S-Bane network to Grade of Automation (GoA4).
Driverless operation at GoA4, the highest Grade of Automation, is due to be introduced on the 170km S-Bane network under a five-phase programme running from 2030 to 2033. According to Siemens, this will be undertaken with “very limited downtime,” ensuring that S-Bane services are not interrupted.
The first phase will cover the F Line between Copenhagen South and Hellerup. Trial operations are due to start in mid-2030 in order to introduce GoA4 in passenger service by the end of that year.
Under the phased rollout, existing GoA2 trains will operate alongside the new driverless GoA4 fleet until 2038, when deliveries of the new driverless trains are due to be completed.
The Siemens contract signed with DSB covers the supply of onboard equipment for the 226 new GoA4 trains. Procurement of the new fleet in underway and DSB expects to award the contract in the first half of 2025.
DSB has prequalified a consortium of Siemens and Stadler for the tender along with Alstom and CAF.
Under its GoA4 contracts, Siemens will equip the fleet maintenance depots at Hundige and Høje Taastrup with radio-based communications systems. The train management system will be upgraded with “new flexible disposition functions,” which Siemens says will offer even smoother operation.
The new contracts build on the deal signed by Siemens in 2011 to supply Trainguard MT CBTC for the Copenhagen S-Bane. The core network has capacity for up to 84 trains an hour, carrying over 100 million passengers a year and serving 88 stations on seven lines.
Traffic is steadily increasing as Copenhagen grows, with the capital now home to over one fifth of the population of Denmark. Upgrading to GoA4 will enable the S-Bane network to meet this growing demand, according to Siemens.
“The Copenhagen S-Bane is already a well-performing railway serving the greater Copenhagen area, and with implementation of the Future S-Bane programme it will evolve into one of the world’s largest and most complex fully-automated mass transit systems, which will provide an even better service to our passengers,” says Mr Jürgen Müller, director of strategy and rolling stock at DSB.
“This comes not only via higher frequency for increased capacity and improved train services during off-peak operations, but also faster recovery from disruption and making it more possible to adapt train services to short-term demand.”
“We are pleased about the prospect of Banedanmark and DSB continuing our work with Siemens to improve Copenhagen’s S-Bane network,” says Mr Peter Jonasson, director of construction at Banedanmark.
“The CBTC system has already shown its merits and we hope that this project can lift the S-Bane even further.”
Separately, DSB has prequalified Siemens Mobility and Ground Transportation Systems Denmark (formerly Thales, now Hitachi) for a contract to supply supporting systems for operation at GoA4.
This will cover the supply of CCTV and emergency stop buttons for station platforms, as well as the development and supply of a system for detecting people and objects on the track. Contract award is expected by the end of 2025.
“The two bidders are strong players in the market and have previously supplied technology for fully automated railway systems, so we expect each of them to deliver an attractive offer,” Müller says.
The April 2022 edition of IRJ included an in-depth report on the Copenhagen S-Bane CBTC project. Website subscribers can read it here.
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