Today, secondary lines account for about 30% of the total network (in terms of line length) in Germany. Due to the developments of the past decades, the importance of secondary railways for local passenger transport (SPNV) and rail freight transport (SGV) has decreased. The consequence was the closure of lines.

The joint project entitled “New secondary railway: innovative vehicle movement safety control aimed at increasing the economic efficiency of regional railway lines” (German abbreviation: NSB) initially aims to develop new techniques and technologies for secondary railway infrastructure and on-board equipment. This, in turn, is required to enable their economical operations in future even in less-developed regions, whose transport density is relatively low. The project not only contributes to achieving climate policy goals, but it also constitutes an opportunity to make short-range passenger rail transport in rural districts more attractive, emphasising the importance of shortrange passenger rail transport for public mobility services.

A project of the CERSS Kompetenzzentrum Bahnsicherungstechnik last year also dealt with these topics. Now selected results have been published in an article for the journal SIGNAL + DRAHT, issue 11/2020.