Siemens lets freight wagons speak

Digitalization is conquering more and more areas of our lives. Especially in the field of mobility, connectivity between vehicles and infrastructure offers great new opportunities if we manage to break down the walls between the existing “data silos”. We have only just started to mine the abundance of information that we can make available by retrieving and aggregating the data hidden in road and rail infrastructure and in the different vehicle fleets. With all the chances this offers, it goes without saying that Siemens will always proceed with extreme caution and give full priority to the safety and security of people and the environment.

In this context I am especially pleased that Deutsche Bahn Cargo (DB Cargo) is trusting in Siemens to decisively support the implementation of their digitalization strategy. Over the course of the next three years we are going to equip, in a first project phase, 30,000 freight wagons of DB Cargo with the Controlguide CTmobile solution. The contract includes also an option for the equipment of two additional lots of 10,000 wagons each.

On the outside, the CTmobile components look rather unspectacular: a small gray box serves as sensor in the wagon, plus another small box installed on the wagon and a server unit – that is all the system is composed of. Yet, the operational data that it will provide are going to open up entirely new options for DB Cargo in terms of fleet management and service provision. How?

The first of the above-mentioned boxes is a sensor unit that is mounted on the freight car to record and transmit, per wireless connection, various parameters such as temperature, loading condition or door status. The data is sent to the CTmobile onboard unit, which uses a GPS satellite connection for continuous positioning and a full-coverage GSM network to connect with a server for transmitting the sensor data. The CTcentral server collects the data from the entire fleet and makes them available for access per Web browser. Moreover, the server can be configured to send text messages or e-mails in case of specific events, for instance when the temperature in a refrigerated wagon exceeds a certain limit, or when a door has been manipulated without authorization.

For DB Cargo, the technology opens up totally new opportunities for advanced customer services. CTmobile will not only allow the gapless tracing of delivery chains, but also more efficient scheduling of the fleet to avoid empty trips of the freight wagons, which are running on the rail network all over Europe. The door monitoring function helps protect the cargo against theft and, last but not least, the technology also reduces maintenance costs since it allows targeted maintenance measures based on the individual freight car’s condition.

We are pleased to have won this huge project, which serves as a model for the entire sector and is a sign of DB Cargo’s trust in our capabilities and technology. The order constitutes the largest digitalization order for freight wagons to date.