GERMANY: Transport authorities go.Rheinland and Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr have selected Alstom to supply and maintain 90 custom-designed Adessia Stream electric multiple-units for S-Bahn services through Köln.
Alstom said the order announced on July 24 was the largest it had won in Germany, with an overall value of more than €4bn including full responsibility for 34 years of maintenance.
The authorities confirmed that Alstom had submitted the most economic offer in a multi-stage tender process, noting that the official signing of the contract would follow.
Tailored to the region’s needs
‘We have commissioned a completely newly developed vehicle that is tailored to the special needs and requirements in our region’, explained go.Rheinland Managing Director Michael Vogel. ‘We are thus raising the S-Bahn fleet to a new level and are already looking forward to using the trains.’
The order covers a mix of nine-car EMUs around 150 m long with a capacity of more than 1 150 passengers and 11-car sets almost 170 m long which will be able to carry up to 1 340 passengers.
VRR said the average journey length on the services where the 140 km/h EMUs would be deployed was around 25 min, but individual journeys ranged from short urban trips where people needed standing space to longer trips of up to 1 h where people wanted a seat.
Alstom said the EMUs would incorporate a mix of ‘innovative flexible modules’ to meet these different needs, with various interior arrangements and multi-purpose areas in each car providing space for prams and bicycles.
The units will feature wi-fi and power sockets which VRR said ‘passengers now take for granted’, with windows permeable to mobile phone signals. They will have ‘powerful’ air-conditioning with environmentally friendly refrigerants to provide a comfortable experience at ambient temperatures from -25°C to +45°C.
Accessibility features will include a Bluetooth digital hearing system. Each end car will have a dedicated wheelchair area and a PRM accessible toilet, together with gap-bridging devices to provide level access. Alstom said this would the first time that a German S-Bahn train of this type would be equipped with toilets.
Production and maintenance
President of Alstom’s DACH region Müslüm Yakisan said the ‘comfortable and innovative trains with a high level of passenger experience and a strong focus on accessibility’ would have ‘a decisive impact on public transport in the region and the cityscape for decades to come’.
Development is to be led by the company’s Hennigsdorf facility, with the trains to be manufactured at Bautzen.
Predictive maintenance is expected to increase availability while reducing costs, and the design aims to enable the continuous optimisation of maintenance processes over the entire service life of the fleet.
Operations
The first EMUs are scheduled to enter trial operation from mid-2029 with all to be in service by 2033.
The unit will be owned by the transport authorities, which will make them available to the operator. Earlier this year incumbent DB Regio was awarded a contract to operate Köln S-Bahn services until December 2032, initially using its own rolling stock.
The S-Bahn network covers services S6 Essen – Düsseldorf – Köln-Worringen, the future S10 Köln-Nippes – Köln-Dellbrück, S11 Düsseldorf Airport – Köln – Bergisch Gladbach, S12 Horrem/Sindorf – Au (Sieg), the future S13 Troisdorf – Bonn-Oberkassel, S19 Aachen/Düren – Au (Sieg), the future S38 (formerly RB38) Bedburg – Horrem – Köln Messe/Deutz and S68 Langenfeld – Düsseldorf – Wuppertal-Vohwinkel.
These services currently total 12·3 million train-km/year, but are expected to increase to 14·2 million in 2032 and 20·1 million in the longer term, following the completion of infrastructure enhancements in the Köln area.
TÜV Rheinland InterTraffic, Neomind and BUSE Rechtsanwälte advised the transport authorities on the development of their plans.
