Fehmarn Belt Train Service Options Studied - Scandinavia

International Railway Journal, Oct, 2001 by Richard Scrase

The proposed Fehmarn Belt fixed rail link between Denmark and Germany is still the subject of much discussion. The consultant, Atkins Danmark, a subsidiary of WS Atkins, Britain, has recently completed an important study investigating options for operating the link.

THE Fehmarn Belt fixed link will be the third and final piece of an immense and challenging engineering jigsaw. The Great Belt and Oresund fixed links created the first direct railway route connecting Scandinavia with the rest of northern Europe, but the distance from Copenhagen to Hamburg via the Great Belt is 522km, compared with only 353km using the trainferry link across the Fehmarn Belt. It is still quicker for passenger trains to use the trainferry rather than the rail route.

Though there has long been talk of building a link between the Danish island of Lolland and Germany, it was only nine years ago that the transport ministers of Denmark and Germany agreed to launch a series of investigations into the viability of a fixed link between the two countries.

The studies were comprehensive in their scope, covering everything from the different options for construction to the likely traffic demand depending on which option was chosen. These study results were presented in 1999.

The investigation carried out by the Danish and German ministries did not examine, however, the practical aspects of operating railway traffic across the link, nor did it suggest the best way to operate trains over each of the different forms of link which may be chosen.

To address these issues, Sund&Baelt the Danish state-owned company belonging to the Fehmarnbelt Development Joint Venture (FDJV), invited Atkins Danmark to investigate the link options, analyse the likely traffic volumes, and identify the probable impact on the adjoining railway infrastructure. This contract was awarded in March and the study was completed in June.

Atkins Danmark examined the results of the ministries' investigations and concluded that they underestimate likely rail passenger numbers. Our review team was unsatisfied with the rather old fashioned methods used to calculate passenger traffic volume, even though the passenger statistics were of a higher standard than the freight both the statistics.

The experience of the Great Belt and Oresund fixed links was also not links taken into account in the traffic models. Train services on both links have been a tremendous success. The journey patterns on the links are quite different, with long distance travellers prevalent on the Great Belt, and short-distance travellers mainly using the Oresund link. Rail passenger traffic on the Oresund link has now reached 18,000/day, which is far beyond expectations.

The ministries' estimate for freight using the Fehmarn Belt fixed link, which is predicted to rise, is likely to be more accurate. Separately, we carried out last year a study which finds that the methods and demand forecasting techniques applied by the ministries are acceptable and that the documentation is sufficient.

In the second part of its study, Atkins Danmark investigated whether the estimated volumes of rail traffic can be accommodated by the project envisaged by the ministries, and determined what upgrades would be necessary on the adjoining infrastructure in Denmark and Germany.

The study team at Atkins Danmark, led by Mr Henrik Sylvan, head of transport planning, and including Dr Jens Rorbech, Dr Anders Kaas, and Mr Morten Vestergaard, paid particular attention to the traffic capacity of a single-track line, identifying at what level the capacity limit is reached and/or the functionality is reduced.

For the purposes of the study, the team assumed the line will be operated by no more than four types of international trains in addition to regional traffic. These comprised:

* 100km/h freight trains

* 200km/h non-stop passenger trains travelling between Copenhagen and Hamburg

* 180km/h interregional trains travelling between Copenhagen and Hamburg with stops in larger cities, and

* 120km/h trains--for example conveying sleeping cars or motorail, intermodal trains, and new train types providing new services to customers, plus 180km/h regional trains travelling between Copenhagen and Nykobing F.

The freight and 120km/h trains are assumed to have a maximum length of 750m and the passenger trains a maximum length of 300m.

We used various planning tools for construction of graphic timetables, and, in this case, we employed UX-Simu. All the analyses concerning traffic demand data on the link was made available by the Danish Ministry of Transport.

In order to test the capacity of the link, and the railway infrastructure to which it will be connected, the team then devised three traffic scenarios. The first, called 'limited traffic', is a minimal traffic scenario, which simply matches the traffic levels projected in the ministries' studies. The two other scenarios, called 'basic traffic' and 'extended traffic', were developed in order to test the infrastructure's capacity to manage more traffic than estimated in the original studies.