Operations center (DB Netz)

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The building in Frankfurt am Main, which houses the operations center of the Central regional area and the network control center.

The operations center ( BZ ) is part of an integral system of DB Netz , which is still being expanded, which is to concentrate rail operations at the respective headquarters of the seven regional areas with regard to control, security and dispatching. The prerequisite for this are remotely controllable interlockings such as electronic interlockings (ESTWs), the technology of which enables the routes for trains and shunting movements to be set over long distances.

Even in an emergency, all threads come together in the operations center. The integrated emergency control center notifies all relevant institutions such as the fire brigade , police , federal police and technical aid organization as well as the emergency manager .

In addition, an operational simulation for training and further education of employees on the ESTWs is available in each of the operations centers.

background

Operations center of the regional east (long-distance railway) of DB Netz in Berlin-Pankow

Historically, the control and security of rail operations was the task of the dispatchers in the signal boxes of the individual operating points . In addition, the charge of a larger area provided management for a smooth operation. Their dispatchers were authorized to give instructions to the dispatchers. Up until the end of the 1990s, Deutsche Bahn still had 15 regional operations managements, each at the headquarters of the former Bundesbahn and Reichsbahndirectors. The supraregional scheduling of train traffic was the responsibility of the two central operations management in Mainz (DB) and Berlin (DR) until 1997 .

While the supraregional scheduling of rail operations is now in the network control center in Frankfurt am Main , the successor organization to the two central operations management, the regional operations management tasks have been transferred to the operations centers. For the approximately 24,000 km of the so-called long-distance and urban network, the tasks of controlling, securing and dispatching rail operations in the Deutsche Bahn AG network are carried out in the seven operations centers in Berlin (long-distance railway in the Pankow district ), Duisburg , Frankfurt am Main, Hanover , Karlsruhe , Leipzig and Munich concentrated. Locally responsible dispatchers and dispatchers, including those in the control centers and transport lines of DB Fernverkehr , DB Regio and DB Cargo, control, secure, monitor and supervise rail operations here in close coordination and cooperation .

The S-Bahn Berlin is a special case with its own operations center in Berlin-Halensee , which is only responsible for the S-Bahn network in Berlin. The specialist services entrusted with the monitoring, maintenance and fault clearance of technical track systems, which are also assigned to the operations center, work together with them.

Routes of predominantly regional importance that are grouped together in regional networks are generally not served from operating centers.

history

The concept of the operations centers emerged from the computer-aided train monitoring (RZü) of the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the computer-aided dispatcher centers (RDZ) of the Deutsche Reichsbahn . Computational Zugüberwachungen should at each Site Directorate be established and were ultimately at eight locations (Berlin, Erfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Frankfurt / Main, Karlsruhe and Nuremberg, later relocated to Munich) implemented.

In December 1995, the expanded, 103 km long section between Werder (Havel) and Magdeburg was the first line section in the Deutsche Bahn network to be controlled from an operations center. This saved 37 signal boxes and 210 employees. The DB had commissioned the planning company Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit on November 3, 1993 with the planning of an operations center. In July 1994, the order followed to complete the first expansion stage of the operations center by December 1995. The Magdeburg operations center went into operation on December 17, 1995. She initially controlled two ESTWs. In 1996 it regulated train traffic over a length of 256 km.

DB Netz operations center for the Berlin S-Bahn in Berlin-Halensee : This operations center (former name: "Zentralstellwerk") is the only operations center in Germany that is solely responsible for the operation of an S-Bahn.

At the end of 1997 (according to other information in 1998), Deutsche Bahn commissioned the BZ 2000 consortium , consisting of the companies Alcatel SEL, Vossloh and Siemens, to set up seven long-distance railway operations centers nationwide and one operations center for the Berlin S-Bahn.

In May 1999, the Frankfurt am Main operations center went into operation at Pfarrer-Perabo-Platz. In the central regional area of DB Netz, it dispatches 6,400 trains per day on 3,685 km of route (as of May 2009). At the start of operations, the BZ Frankfurt employed around 120 people, at the beginning of 2009 there were around 225. The first tax area was the Frankfurt am Main hub, today (as of early 2009) there are twelve tax districts. Previously, from the end of September 1998, eleven signal boxes in the Frankfurt hub area were remote-controlled in a preliminary stage (station area Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof ), which had previously been controlled by the central signal box at Frankfurt Main Station . It was planned to control all routes in Hessen from the operations center by around 2010.

The Leipzig operations center went into operation on November 27, 1999. With over a hundred jobs, it is (as of 2005) the largest operations center. It is subject to 13 tax districts in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and parts of Brandenburg (as of April 2014). The Leipzig main station controls the nodes Leipzig main station , Dresden main station , Magdeburg main station , Erfurt main station , Chemnitz main station and main station Halle (Saale) .

The central switching point for the control and monitoring of the nearly 6000 km long overhead line network of the DB network branch southeast is housed in the same building.

The Hanover operations center also went into operation in 1999. Since December 2001 it has been an emergency control center. At the end of 2009, around 240 employees remotely controlled nine interlockings from the Hanover operations center , including Hanover Central Station , Braunschweig Central Station , Bremen Central Station , Lübeck Central Station and Kiel Central Station .

The Duisburg operations center also went into operation in 1999. It emerged from the former operations management of the Cologne and Essen Federal Railway Directorates. From here, 250 employees operate 15 ESTWs in North Rhine-Westphalia (as of 2009).

By the end of 1999, the basic functionality was put into operation at all eight locations.

The Munich operations control center was put into operation in 2001 and is housed in a circular building on Donnersbergerbrücke . The workstations laid out on several levels in the round should enable direct communication between employees. Around 11,000 trains a day will be controlled by the BZ München in 2016.

The entire BZ 2000 system was introduced in several steps. First, in 1999, the train surveillance and dispatcher centers were replaced across the board. In 2003 the timetable procedure was introduced, in which the maintenance of the timetables was taken over. Finally, at the end of 2004, the train dispatching procedure was introduced. By 2004, around 130 software developers had developed more than five million lines of source code for the operations centers.

The first relay interlockings were later integrated into the operations centers. Special interfaces were developed for this.

In mid-2017, DB Netz announced that due to the further development of the technical framework (see digital interlockings ) and the experience with the existing operations centers, a new operations control strategy would be implemented. In addition to the existing control centers, around 100 smaller control centers with 6 to 20 operator stations each are to be built in the future. By combining the control centers with technical locations and working with the regional networks, synergy effects are hoped for in maintenance.

Effects

Last but not least, DB Netz AG hopes that the operations centers will lower the running costs of operations. However, whether this effect occurs as expected is partly controversial among experts. The savings in personnel and the advantages of concentrating forces are offset by high costs (for example for the installation and maintenance of the technology) and a lack of presence in the area. In the event of a fault, this can result in longer fault clearance times.

After the sale of the BASA network, which was initially used to handle data communication between the operations centers and the interlockings, the long-term occupancy of the lines initially incurred high costs, so that remote control was more expensive than with locally manned operations. In 2002, Deutsche Bahn bought back the network and has been operating it since then.

On the other hand, there are advantages, for example, for routes that had a nightly shutdown due to high personnel costs . After being connected to the control center, they can also be used for night diversions or night freight traffic without significant additional costs.

In the event of a failure of the operations center, for example due to evacuation due to munitions clearance near the FC, the control of the ESTW sub-centers, which are normally controlled from the FC, can be taken over by emergency operating stations at the location of the respective sub-center. In the case of the Leipzig operations center, DB Netz assumes that this would lead to a 50% reduction in control capacities in node stations, so that train journeys and shunting journeys have to be reduced.

By decision of February 25, 2010, the Federal Railway Authority and the Federal Network Agency obliged Deutsche Bahn to open their operations centers to interested competitors with effect from September 1, after they had previously been denied access to the operations centers. In particular, this is intended to limit the previous competitive disadvantages of rail transport companies outside the DB. At the same time, the Federal Network Agency determined that DB Netz AG is obliged  to tolerate and not to hinder unannounced official investigations to check whether such unequal treatment exists under Section 14c AEG. DB Netz and the DB railway companies initially objected to this decision, but later withdrew it.

Operations centers in other countries

The Swiss Federal Railways operate four operations centers from which the entire SBB network will be controlled in the final stage. BZ West was opened in Lausanne in May 2010, followed by BZ Ost at Zurich Airport in December 2010 and finally BZ South in Pollegio in April 2014. BZ Mitte is located in Olten .

The Austrian Federal Railways built from 2005 to 2015 five control centers (BFZ) in Innsbruck , Salzburg , Vienna , Villach , and Linz .

The Czech SŽDC opened an operations center in Prague - Libeň on February 1, 2016 , where 109 route dispatchers and 36 operators are to be responsible for 2200 km of route at the end of 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dispatchers practice for the new job . In: DB Welt , October 2007 edition, p. 10.
  2. ↑ a b c Stephan Barke, Ralf Salka, Michael Kant: BZ 2000 - train dispatching in the operations center Fernbahn Berlin in operation . In: signal + wire . tape 97 , no. 6 , 2005, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 26-29 .
  3. ^ Achim Heinrichs: Operations centers: Commissioning using the example of Hanover . In: signal + wire . tape 98 , no. 9 , 2006, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 20-26 .
  4. ^ Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit (Ed.): Project 5: What happens until December . May 28, 1995.
  5. ^ Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit (Ed.): Fast ways between Magdeburg and Berlin . Six-page leporello, Berlin, approx. 1995.
  6. ↑ a b Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit (Ed.): No. 5 done . Brochure, circa 1995.
  7. ^ Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit (Ed.): Transport projects German unity. Railways. Fast ways for tomorrow. Information for the transport committee of the German Bundestag. Conversation with Prof. Dr. S. Defects, spokesman for the management of the Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit mbH (PB DE) on November 23, 1995 in the Bonn Parliamentary Society . Bonn, November 23, 1995, without page numbering.
  8. ^ Staaken in May, Potsdam in December . In: Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit mbH (publisher): Info-Brief , ZDB -ID 2668166-3 , issue 1/1996, p. 7.
  9. ↑ a b c d e Reinhold Hundt: Operations centers of DB Netz AG - The revolution in operations management . In: signal + wire . tape 97 , no. 1 , 2005, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 3 .
  10. ↑ 10 years operations center in Frankfurt . In: DB Welt , May 2009 edition, Central regional edition, p. 21
  11. ↑ message new operations center for Frankfurt / M . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , Issue 1/2, 1999, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 2.
  12. ↑ DB Netz AG (Ed.): Operations center Leipzig: Technology with a future . Brochure, Leipzig, August 2006, p. 7.
  13. ↑ The Hanover operations center is the “guardian of punctuality” . In: DB Welt , October 2009 edition, North regional section, p. 23.
  14. ↑ Operations center monitors 2,500 kilometers of routes in NRW . In: DB Welt , November 2009 edition, West regional section, p. 24.
  15. ↑ Johannes Hirschlach: Dawn of the Computer Age . In: railway magazine . No. 3 , 2016, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 45 .
  16. ↑ Michael Lübbers, Adem Varol: Integration of relay interlockings in the operation of control centers . In: signal + wire . tape 99 , no. 6 , 2007, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 13-19 .
  17. ↑ Dr Jörg Bormet, Ralf Rausch: Setting the course for the future of operational control . In: Bahn Fachverlag GmbH (Hrsg.): Your train . No. 7 , 2017 ( dein-bahn.de [PDF; accessed on March 18, 2018]). Setting the course for the future of operational control ( memento of the original from July 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deine-bahn.de
  18. ↑ Report expensive remote control centers . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 10/2000, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 428.
  19. ↑ Preliminary information: Suspected bombs near Leipziger Hbf , accessed on June 2, 2020
  20. ↑ a b German Bundestag (ed.): Activity report 2010 of the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railways for the railways sector in accordance with Section 14b of the General Railway Act and statement by the Federal Government (PDF file; 1.4 MB). Printed matter 17/8525 of January 30, 2012, pp. 31-32.
  21. ↑ Federal Railway Office : DB Netz AG must also open operations centers for external railway companies ( memento of March 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Press release 06/2010 from February 26, 2010
  22. ↑ Federal Network Agency : Competitors of the DB Group are given access to operations centers . Press release from February 26, 2010.
  23. ↑ The largest SBB operations center is now officially in operation . In: Swiss Railway Review . No. 1 , 2016, ISSN  1022-7113 , p. 41 .
  24. ^ SBB: New operations centers in Olten and Zurich . In: signal + wire . tape 98 , no. 9 , 2006, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 72 .
  25. ↑ a b In control . In: Railway Gazette International . tape 171 , no. 12 , 2015, ISSN  0373-5346 , p. 7 .
  26. ↑ Gerhard Haipl, Richard Sagner: Five operations control centers in the rail network of ÖBB Infrastruktur AG . In: signal + wire . tape 108 , no. 1 + 2 , 2016, ISSN  0037-4997 , p. 44-50 .
  27. ↑ Czech Republic: SŽDC with operations center. In: eurailpress.de. DVV Media Group GmbH, February 24, 2016, accessed on March 1, 2016 .