New Generation of Rail Vehicles
In recent years, RWTH was able to demonstrate its expertise in transport and mobility projects. Following the successful establishment and sale of StreetScooter GmbH, in 2015, the company e.GO was founded, with the aim of producing affordable electric vehicles for the private market. Now the University is pleased to announce that it has entered into a research collaboration with Siemens Mobility, titled “Future Train.”
"The Future Train project provides us with the opportunity to use innovative approaches for the development of a completely new generation of rail vehicles,” said Dr. Jochen Eickholt, the CEO of Siemens Mobility Division.
In order to realize the goals of the collaboration, researchers have been organized into Lead Engineering Groups, where each group is headed by two team leaders, one from Siemens, and one from RWTH.
To arrive at novel solutions, new development methods and production processes will be utilized: “There is hardly any other product that offers us the same potential for implementing our innovative research solutions than a rail vehicle,” commented Professor Günther Schuh, director of RWTH’s Laboratory of Machine Tools and Production Engineering WZL.
In this long-term project, the partners want to improve the competitiveness of rail transport against other carriers. New technologies and materials will be analyzed and tested for applicability in the “future train”.
Furthermore, the project seeks to develop multi-modal mobility concepts which help to realize a holistic integration of rail transport and individual private transportation. In addition, the increasing significance of autonomously driving vehicles will be taken into account.
As Dr. Peter Burggräf, senior researcher at WZL and co-initiator of the project, summarizes, “We are aware of the challenges in store for us. But looking at the ideas generated so far, we expect to achieve outstanding results."
In 2016, a master plan will be developed to define and coordinate individual development projects. The implementation phase is scheduled to start in 2017.