Automation of branch line railways

The operation of branch line railways has often been discontinued in recent years due to a lack of profitability. The use of autonomously running train sets could in many cases enable economical operation, even with short train intervals, and thus contribute significantly to a CO2 reduction in local transport. An indispensable prerequisite for this is highly reliable communication between the infrastructure (points, level crossings, train detectors on the tracks,...) and the traction units.

In cooperation with ÖBB, a digital twin was developed for such a scenario and validated on the basis of radio channel measurements in the real environment of a railway station with numerous scatterers (masts, trees,...). This enables meaningful modelling and reliability analyses.