Banedanmark, the Danish railway infrastructure manager, opened for commercial service its first line fully equipped with ERTMS, running from Roskilde to Köge, in the Eastern part of the country.
The 20-km line is equipped with both ERTMS trackside, on-board signalling solutions and fully integrated with the Traffic Management System from Alstom. It is operated by 12 trains, owned by DSB.
“It is really positive that we have now digitized the signalling system on the first section in Eastern Denmark. When the old signals are replaced with the signals of the future, we get a much more solid foundation for the operation of the trains, which is a green and easy way for sustainable transport services,” said the Transport Minister, Benny Engelbrecht.
Denmark is currently implementing its new signalling strategy on its railway network, by replacing the existing railway signalling system with ETCS level 2 baseline 3 to further gain passenger capacity and reduce delays.
Banedanmark is the first infrastructure owner in Europe to apply this baseline version on a national scale. The opening of the line marks a significant milestone for the Danish signalling program run by Banedanmark.
Alstom is currently replacing the existing signalling system in the Eastern part of Denmark with ERTMS on 800 km of tracks. So far, Alstom has equipped over 100 km with the ERTMS trackside solutions. During the homologation of the Denmark’s first high speed line from Copenhagen to Ringsted in November last year, Alstom set a new railway speed record for Denmark at 255 km/h.
Alstom also holds the contract to equip the entire Danish fleet of approximately 350 trains with Atlas On-board equipment. Already, 20 percent of the fleet is successfully installed and several main operators including DSB, Arriva, Nordjyske Jernbaner, are running commercial operations with the ERTMS system installed on-board the trains. On lines where there is no trackside ERTMS yet installed, the fitted trains run with a Legacy Systems deployed by Alstom.
Signalling errors account for 50% of Denmark rail traffic failures. When the new signalling system will be deployed on country’s railway network and rolling stock fleet, up to 80 percent of all the delays caused by signal failures will disappear.
By 2030, Denmark will deploy the new signalling system. Banedanmark expects that next year the new system will be installed on the Struer-Thisted line, and in 2021, other three lines will be equipped.
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