No car, no problem - Sabine's smart Hamburg commute
Cities & Society
No car, no problem - Sabine's smart Hamburg commute
Wandsbek Berne to Hauptbahnhof - U1, 38 mins / Hauptbahnhof to Dammtor (Messe) Hamburg – S2, 6 mins
6:20. The alarm goes off.
Sabine wakes up and sits on the edge of her bed, collecting herself before another busy Tuesday.
Agenda: Wake up Julia, her eight-year-old daughter. Breakfast, bathroom, dressed. Drop her off at school by 8:15.
Take the 8:40 U1 into Hamburg Mitte for a busy morning at the office. Today she’ll present her latest graphic proposal to her client.
Normally, she would have a 7:00 pm evening course in AI-aided design at HAW-Hamburg. But today is special – she has an exciting meeting at the UITP conference at Hamburg Messe.
Back home by 8:30 pm. Probably very, very tired.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are so busy. There’s no way she could manage it all without help from her father, Volker. He takes the train from the city to Wandsbek to pick Julia up from school and watch her in the evenings.
Even though she works and studies in the city centre, Sabine prefers to live outside the city – lower rents, bigger apartments, more green space and good schools for Julia.
Standing on the platform at Berne U-Bahn station after dropping Julia off at school, Sabine finally takes a deep breath. Julia is so excited to see Volker after school. He’ll probably take her for ice cream.
She considered buying a car when she moved to Wandsbek, but why absorb the extra cost when public transportation is so good? On days with just moderate traffic, the U-Bahn is faster. And since she doesn’t have to pay for petrol, parking or insurance, she’s saving a ton of money.
On top of that, she loves the way her train trips bookend her busy days. She loves the time to mentally transition from home to work and back again.
Sabine also worries about the climate and about Julia’s future, so choosing a sustainable mode of transportation is important to her. She wants to set a good example for Julia.
Hours later, after a successful client meeting, she grabs a quick sandwich on the way to the S-Bahn at Hauptbahnhof. She doesn’t need a coffee today – she’s so excited for her meeting with Alstom’s Advanced & Creative Design team at the UITP Summit! She’s been following their industrial design innovations for the past few years, and it’s a kind of dream to work with them one day.
Sabine glances quickly at the large, highly legible info screen on the S-Bahn platform – next train is approaching. She walks aboard the train with all her gear and finds a comfortable seat under a big glass window, perfect for opening her laptop and reviewing her meeting notes one last time before she reaches Dammtor.
She closes her eyes for just a moment and imagines Volker and Julia enjoying their ice cream. It’ll be nice to see Dad for a few minutes when she gets home this evening.
We told you last month about changing demographics and passenger profiles.
There’s another important transformation we’re particularly interested in at Alstom, one we’re expecting will grow in the future.
A responsible shift in transport
Modal shift. People switching from cars to trains, from planes to trains.
We don’t need to tell you – fossil fuel resources are becoming scarce and are finite in nature. As they become scarcer, they’ll become more costly.
In fact, the projected cost increase of individual transportation encourages shared modes of transport. In addition, these shared modes better accommodate emerging lifestyle trends like the four-day work week and individuals living in dual residences.
Cost isn’t the only driver of modal shift. As urban populations balloon, city planners will have to be mindful of traffic jams and parking. Even though urban areas are expected to expand in size, there still won’t be enough space to build an ever-increasing number of roads and infrastructure for single-passenger transport.
We believe there is one mode of transport best suited to become the backbone for a network of clean mobility options: rail.
The average GHG emissions for rail in terms of CO2 per passenger kilometre travelled are less than one-sixth of that for cars and one-fifth of that for air travel. The sector’s well‑to-wheel carbon emissions account for only 3% of total transport emissions, while representing 8% of global motorized passenger transport.
The European Commission has an ambitious target – double high-speed rail passenger numbers by 2030. We need to devise new systems that achieve unprecedented levels of capacity, while also using the latest technologies to increase the capacity of existing networks. What could be more sustainable than extracting value from the infrastructure we already have?
Policy and personal choice must also compel people to opt for clean transport modes. Switching to sustainable modes is a necessity to protect ecosystems, preserve biodiversity and responsibly manage resources.
But now we need to shift harder. According to the IEA, to achieve Net Zero targets, rail modal share must increase by over 40% by 2030. Another way of saying this? The rail sector carries less than 10% of the world's passengers and freight now – that number needs to reach 14-15% by 2030.
A new S-Bahn for Hamburg
The blueprint for greener mobility also includes digitalisation and automation of rail operations.
Sabine takes a quick trip to Hamburg Messe to meet creative designers from Alstom. In the very near future – later in 2025, in fact – she'll be riding in a cutting-edge S-Bahn. Interestingly, she might not notice the majority of innovations.
64 new Class 490 trains will be delivered to Hamburg this year. These will be the first S-Bahns in Germany to feature European Train Control System (ETCS) Baseline 3 Release 2 signalling as well as automated train operation (ATO) technology. This potent combination of innovations promises increased capacity, shorter headways and reduced energy consumption.
One thing that Sabine might notice in the new trains is additional multipurpose areas in each middle car, featuring spaces for bicycles, luggage and limited mobility passengers. As always, the 490’s DNA remains unchanged – winner of the Good Design Award and the Brandenburg Design Prize, it's designed and manufactured locally in Germany and features optimised passenger flow thanks to three entrance doors per side, per car.
From an eco-design perspective, a traction heat recovery feature based on a water-cooled traction system and heat pumps leads to 20% energy savings on air conditioning, equivalent to a 4 to 5% energy consumption reduction at train level.
The 64 new cars are in addition to the 82 already in use. Those will later be retrofitted with the same signalling and automation technology as the new cars.
A passion for rail design
Sabine ends her day with a meeting at the UITP Summit with Alstom’s Advanced & Creative Design team. Who are they? What do they do?
A collective of passionate, multidisciplinary design professionals, A&CD leverages strategy, design and innovation to define future rail experiences and tackle complex challenges with elegance. These creative professionals possess a deep understanding of intricate railway design problems and are one of the largest in-house design teams in the B2B sector dedicated to delivering innovative solutions.
These product designers, colour and trim designers, digital designers, visualisation designers and UX/UI designers assist the business in Research & Development, tender support and projects. They help produce design books, user interfaces, virtual reality programs, configurators, movies and mock-ups.
Their core belief? Exceptional design goes beyond just aesthetics. It embraces strong functionality, innovative thinking and the creation of realistic, manufacturable products.
Looking ahead, A&CD is increasingly becoming involved in a different kind of design: that of operational software, with an eye towards improving user experience.
Another exciting project is the Alstom Virtual Universe, the first of its kind in the rail industry. This technology allows customers, partners and employees to immerse themselves in a virtual city where trains, metros, locomotives, trams and monorails run in 3D. The universe spans almost 4 km² of virtual space and offers 26 different types of virtual trains.
See A&CD in action! Watch the video below.
As the industry’s only Pure Rail Player, Alstom has the experience, foresight and talent to make rail the resilient foundation of sustainable mobility. We’re architecting the rail of tomorrow, today.
