Dutch government and rail freight sector do not see eye to eye on DAC

The Dutch state secretary for infrastructure, Chris Jansen, recently attended a Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) demonstration with his German counterpart. Jansen sees potential in the new tech, and now wants European pilot trains to test its practical implementation. Dutch officials seem eager to develop DAC further, but market parties are certain that it will backfire.

“It’s an exciting new technology with great potential to make rail freight transport more efficient and future-proof”, state secretary Jansen stated after the DAC demonstration. “One of the first steps is developing more demonstrator trains for operational testing. These pilot projects will provide important information for how DAC can be rolled out in the future. After the pilots we’ll talk with our European partners about the next steps. Because rail freight transport doesn’t stop at the border.”

Those pilot trains, explains the Dutch infrastructure ministry, are organised on an EU-level and are eligible for Connecting Europe Facility-financing. That is exactly the approach that the ministry has in mind for the technology: “DAC could contribute to more efficient and competitive rail freight in the long term, but there is a lot needed before the technology reaches that point, also in connection with its implementation. For that reason, we are expecting a leading role from the EU, and the Netherlands facilitates this where possible, such as at DAC tests in practice.”

Rail freight sector sees no benefits and lots of costs

The Dutch official curiosity towards DAC is evident. What is no less evident, is the opposing viewpoint taken up by market parties: Those by and large speak out against DAC as a viable new technology.

Hans-Willem Vroon, director of rail freight branch association RailGood, says that there is no business case for DAC. A Europe-wide implementation of the system would require 15 billion euros, and that is without locomotive retrofitting. It would make cost-ridden rail freight more expensive at a time when expenses are the sector’s major obstacle. On top of that, DAC is a very sensitive system, which makes rail freight unreliable, says Vroon.

Single wagon load

Mark Jansen, operations director at Hupac, shares those views. “We don’t like the idea of DAC at all”, he says. He shares Vroon’s analysis. However, he says, “I can imagine that DAC may be viable for single wagon load (SWL) traffic. But in that case, let SWL pay for it, and not us.” For block trains that drive between two fixed destinations, there is no added value from DAC, according to Jansen. “After all, these trains maintain the same makeup 95 per cent of the time”, he writes on social media. The opposite is true for SWL, where the train composition changes much more often.

Besides that, nothing about the qualities of DAC is clear, according to Jansen. “When it comes to disruptions, errors and maintenance, nothing is for certain.” His appeal to the Netherlands: “Do not let yourself be fooled.”