Several electronic interlocking systems are to be upgraded or replaced for the DB Netz AG (German Rail) Central Region. Drees & Sommer infrastructure experts are supporting the client by providing a wide range of services.

For the Riedbahn interlocking system, the services provided include project management and project control covering HOAI (German Schedule of Services and Fees for Architects and Engineers) service phases 3 + 4. The aim of the project is to improve the operational quality of the systems and to ensure their availability. To achieve this, the interlocking systems on the 4010 line from Lampertheim to Walldorf will be replaced with an electronic interlocking system (ESTW) with four ESTW-A and three ESTW control centers in Gernsheim. In addition, the Continuous Automatic Train Control system will be replaced by a Level 2 European Train Control System (ETCS) (with signals). Work started in 2022 and will be completed in 2024.

In July 2024, DB will begin work on the general refurbishment of the extremely congested Riedbahn rail corridor between Frankfurt and Mannheim. A multidisciplinary team will coordinate the work allowing it to be carried out at record speed. The aim is to renew all technical facilities and modernize 20 stations along the line in just five months. With this general upgrade, DB is for the first time bundling all construction measures scheduled for the next few years for a high-volume corridor into a single line closure.

Drees & Sommer is closely coordinating both measures – the commissioning of the electronic interlocking system (ESTW) and the general refurbishment.

Creating awareness / communicating knowledge / demonstrating / explaining solutions: Based on these four phases, Nokia is dedicating its new showroom to the topic of "digital security". The idea is to guide the specially invited international guests from politics, universities and top management step by step through four modules, to sensitise them to the topic and to educate them, so that by the end they have obtained a strong feeling of security. The exhibition didactics and design ensure that the visitors themselves become an active part of the exhibition: this enables knowledge to be linked to experiences, thereby fulfilling the main goal The large-scale, space-expanding use of mirrors with all its effects, possibilities and myths determined both the design of the exhibition, and the exhibition didactics. Is what I see reality or an illusion? Can I trust what I’m seeing? Is all of this true? What’s hidden behind it? The mirrors have different ways of communicating with the observers: by confronting them with themselves and other interactive content. In the first two phases, the visitors are aware that they have been left in the dark, in infinity. Analogous to the content on display and its increasingly solution-oriented transfer of knowledge, the design of the spatial arrangement becomes clearer and theatrically accentuates the exhibition’s didactics.