GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn has awarded four long-term framework contracts which are designed to ensure the stable supply and deployment of digital signalling systems including interlockings, ETCS and control systems.
The framework contracts an overall value of €6·3bn have been awarded to:
- MerMec Deutschland;
- Hitachi Rail GTS;
- Alstom;
- Siemens Mobility with Leonhard Weiss.
The framework is intended to be the basis for all future digital interlocking projects in Germany, removing the need for multiple individual contracts. The scale enables DB to secure production capacity by committing to ordering at least 15 500 units between early 2025 and the end of 2028, with individual projects to be implemented by 2032.
The suppliers have committed to using standard interfaces and to reliably build up and maintain the resources to undertake projects.
DB anticipates that the time to implement a project will be significantly reduced from an average of eight years at present.
‘In the next few years, we want to massively advance digitisation’, said Berthold Huber, Board Member for Infrastructure at Deutsche Bahn, on February 11. The contracts ‘will significantly accelerate this process. We have entered into a new partnership and agreed on a complete package that benefits both sides, and our customers on the network.’
He said control and safety technology requires high quality standards but faces a high level of obsolescence, and the contracts would ‘make a significant contribution to changing this situation and renewing more control and safety technology more quickly’.
Siemens Mobility’s contract is worth up to €2·8bn. CEO Michael Peter said ‘the new award and contracting model marks a paradigm shift for the rail industry. It enables the industry to develop the resources necessary for modernising Germany’s rail network. And thanks to its optimised interfaces, the contract will also make the implementation process much more efficient.’
Alstom said its €600m framework including the supply of a minimum of 1 890 interlocking units provides an ‘unprecedented’ level of security for planning and implementation. ‘A long-term framework agreement with a fixed scope is the basis for maximum success in implementing the Digital Rail Germany initiative’, said Tim Dawidowsky, President of the supplier’s Central &Northern Europe region.
Hitachi Rail Germany COO Markus Fritz said the contracts provide the supply sector with ‘long-awaited planning security for the preservation and expansion of high-quality jobs in one of the world’s most successful high-tech sectors’, and DB is ‘securing the necessary investments for itself and Germany in the long term’.
DB plans to extend this model of contracting to other aspects of railway modernisation.
