On 6 December, Deutsche Bahn and SNCF brought some of their partner start-ups together for the first time. Rüdiger Grube, chairman of Deutsche Bahn AG, and Guillaume Pepy were present at this meeting which took place at the SNCF 574 Digital Centre in Saint-Denis.

Centre stage for six start-ups

Three months after signing a memorandum of understanding on digital technology, Deutsche Bahn (DB) and SNCF have organised a first event aimed at combining their skills and experience in innovation and digital technology. Their intention is to create a dynamic for cooperation at European level to further strengthen the rail sector.

SNCF’s partners:

• Deepki analyses data on business premise use to increase efficiency;
• Metigate combines meteorological data and company information to optimise marketing offers;
• BulldozAIR has developed a visual maintenance and production team task management tool.

DB’s partners:

• Konux picks up vibrations from the track to digitalise measurements and target maintenance work more effectively;
• EasyLocker is offering a 100% digital solution to update DB’s 22 000 luggage lockers;
• Motion Tag has developed a purchasing, payment and validation platform using a smartphone for various modes of travel.

Stephan Leppler, one of the founders of Motion Tag, summed up the feelings of these “young” entrepreneurs:

It is a unique experience to be able to present my project to two of the major leaders in European transport

In the wake of this meeting in Paris, the cooperation between DB and SNCF on digital affairs is continuing along several lines, including exchanges regarding best practice in terms of open data and contracting policy with start-ups, and the opening up of the two groups’ respective markets to partner start-up companies.

Clearly identified issues

Now we need all this to be adapted to applications on a large-scale and connected up to existing systems

added the President of the SNCF managing board.
After Guillaume Pepy, Rüdiger Grube also stressed the specific risk of seeing “infomediairies” such as Google or Uber capture part of the value and so the business of the two transport groups:

Data are a valuable resource and no other companies generate as much data as DB and SNCF. Together our operations have 1.8 billion customers

said Rüdiger Grube.

We must keep this business in our own hands!” urged the chairman of DB, encouraging the two companies to go even further in strengthening their partnership in the digital field, to “be leaders, not followers

Guillaume Pepy, President of SNCF said:

The solutions presented to us today clearly illustrate the incredible power of the internet in industry. We are not talking about 2% or 5% gains in productivity, but 20% or 30%. As Chairman Grube said, it is up to us to make this work

Numerous events between now and the summer

After presenting the start-ups, the meeting continued with workshops on other fields involving the digital partnership between SNCF and DB: collaboration in the telecommunications sector, with the particular aim of improving French and German network cover (3, 4 and 5G), defining common standards for sensors and sharing work on automated train piloting.
Some of the French and German delegations then went on to the Convergence for the Industries of the Future Show, which was being held at Paris-Nord Villepinte until 9 December, and at which Germany was the guest of honour this year.

The aim, between now and next year is to forge a joint position as regards open innovation, strengthen relations between the two groups and their joint partners, in particular with telecom operators, and also to increase work sharing on both sides regarding the Internet of things and driverless trains. Significant work is also beginning on facilitating data exchange in relations with sub-contractors and suppliers in the rail sector.

(Source: SNCF)