There’s no doubt that it’s a real niche product: the DB Autozug. Students at jade hochschule in wilhelmshaven now want to change that.
The DB Autozug is a fast and relaxed way to enjoy your winter holidays.
Photo: deutsche bahn
„vacation from the beginning.“ with this catchy slogan, deutsche bahn AG advertises its car train. And it is true. The DB Autozug is a comfortable and safe way to travel long distances without having to leave your car at your vacation destination. For example, you can travel the 950 kilometers from hamburg to innsbruck in a very relaxed way, you sleep and don’t crash through the night stressed out. At eight o’clock in the morning, you get off the train, get behind the wheel of your car and drive to the winter sports hotel. Two hours later you are speeding down the runway for the first time. So much for the theory. As is often the case, the reality is different. „So far, the DB Autozug has not been a successful model", says dr. Michael szeliga, who teaches marketing, strategy and product management at the jade hochschule in wilhelmshaven "problems are mainly caused by the complex loading of the vehicles.“
The problem is loading and unloading: here it is a matter of going in order
Indeed, it seems anachronistic that in 2013 the vehicles all have to be driven dutifully one behind the other onto the car train wagons. When unloading, you are amazed again, because the cars can of course only be unloaded in the same sequence. Only backwards. It is obvious that this procedure consumes an enormous amount of time and, above all, drastically restricts the flexibility for the routes that can be offered in the route network as DB Autozug.
prospective industrial engineers at jade hochschule now want to eliminate this anachronism. at first glance, your idea sounds a bit weird: "a particularly promising loading variant has been to drive the car onto the wagon from the side, comparable to parking in a parking space from the side", explains michael szeliga. Because it really saves time when loading and unloading the wagons. However, in order to minimize maneuvering space, the wheels of the cars would have to be able to be turned through a right angle. This is not a big problem with the still quite rare electric cars, but it is with the normal cars. According to szeliga, additional retractable rollers would be a conceivable solution here. the marketing professor from wilhelmshaven is well aware of the limited market for such cars: "since it is not to be expected that there will be sufficient buyer interest in the near future for vehicles equipped in this way." he explains "the overall concept relies on a suitable range of rental cars.“
It makes sense in combination with car-sharing
And from this point on, the idea makes perfect sense: because the importance of one’s own car as a status symbol is dwindling, and for young people it has become unimportant. You want to get from one place to another, no matter by which means of transport. This is also reflected in the growing interest in car-sharing services, especially in urban areas. And it can be interesting for car-sharing providers to convert part of their vehicle fleet so that they can be loaded onto the car train of the future.
Car train started as an involuntary april Fool’s joke
In fact, it would be a good idea to transfer the dusty model of the car train into a mobile future. The era of the autotrain began on the 1st of all days. april 1930 as "auto-train" traffic. the driver abandoned his car at the german reichsbahn and took a passenger train to his destination. His car was transported to its destination on ordinary flat cars in a freight train. The deutsche bundesbahn took up the concept of the motorail train in 1956, and from 25. June 1956 under the slogan "car on the train between hamburg and chiasso in the swiss canton of ticino this service was offered four times a week. In 1956, a total of 930 vehicles were registered as "cars on trains to ticino by coach.
Job search for engineers
The only time the car transport business really took off was in the year of the first oil crisis. In 1973, the railroad transported 185 passengers on 163 connections.500 vehicles, more than ever before or since. On the contrary: in 1987, for example, 397.000 travelers with about 145.000 cars and motorcycles used the service. That just about covered the costs for the railroad at that time.
Comfort as a lure does not really work either
The railroad tries to counteract with comfort. Thus, practically all connections have a dining car. But the car train concept is weakening all the same. For some years now, the railroads have been thinning out their services more and more. Currently there are only 17 connections on offer. Among other things, such real cracker connections as from hildesheim to Lorrach. That does indeed sound like it could be improved. Maybe the deutsche bahn and the students under michael szeliga from the only on 1. The jade hochschule in wilhelmshaven, founded on september 2009, is working together to revolutionize the outdated model of the car train. And the car-sharers are converting a few cars so that they can park sideways.