Nevomo, in collaboration with Hansebahn Bremen GmbH (HBB), a joint venture of rail logistics expert Captrain Deutschland and steel company ArcelorMittal Bremen, are launching a joint pilot project – MagRail Booster – for automated freight transport at the Bremen factory.
The project will start in December 2024 and should achieve full automation within three years. Its results are expected to demonstrate that a fully automated freight wagon transport system can use the existing vehicles and rail infrastructure and deliver faster services.
The project is funded by the federal programme Future of Rail Freight Transport (Z-SGV) of the German Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport (BMDV).
Under the project, HBB is responsible for organising and implementing rail transport on the 100 km-long rail infrastructure.
The pilot will be run under the name ‘BREMAG – Bremen Magnetic Shuttle’ and will focus on the transport of steel coils between production sites. By retrofitting the rail infrastructure with the MagRail Booster system, the shuttle operation will deliver unprecedented flexibility and frequency, minimizing delays and eliminating reliance on road transport for urgent deliveries.
“The automation of transport and shunting services offers great potential for increasing the efficiency of rail freight transport. It will allow us to carry out transport operations more frequently, more reliably and more flexibly and improve our carbon footprint by reducing the use of diesel locomotives,” Jonas Tesch, managing director of HBB said.
The automated freight transport pilot project uses Nevomo’s MagRail Booster technology which integrates advanced linear motor technology into existing rail infrastructure, enabling autonomous, fully-automated operation of freight wagons without the need to use locomotives. Specifically, retrofitting existing rail infrastructure includes installing an active linear motor stator and equipping wagons with specially developed linear motors. This will allow the railcars to move autonomously and be controlled by a magnetic field. This innovation addresses critical challenges in rail logistics, such as increasing productivity, efficiency and operational capacity while supporting decarbonization efforts.
“We are delighted of the trust given to MagRail Booster from such renowned rail logistics and industrial players as Captrain. We are convinced that that the innovation in traction by replacing locomotives with linear motor-powered self-propelled wagons combined with the Rail-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model holds the key to significantly reducing the carbon footprint of logistics on a global scalle,” Przemek Ben Paczek, the CEO of Nevomo said.
BREMAG is an important milestone that demonstrates the feasibility of automating rail transport with linear motors and has a total budget of around 6 million euros. The project is supported by the federal programme ‘Future Rail Freight Transport for the Promotion of Innovation’ (Z-SGV) of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport Affairs (BMDV) in cooperation with the German Centre for Rail Transport Research (DZSF).). The programme offers financial support to enable innovative advances in rail logistics.
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