With the Next Generation Train (NGT) project, the DLR is pursuing a holistic approach for future rail vehicles in high-speed traffic. Safe, comfortable and environmentally friendly are attributes generally assigned to rail transport. A closer look at today’s high-speed rail transport however reveals that these attributes also compete and conflict with each other. Energy efficiency and environmental friendliness, for example, are often rightly questioned.

These are the issues the NGT project aims to address. DLR is designing a generation-after-next train that meets the diverse and complex demands of future high-speed transport by rail. In order to achieve these ambitious aims, and thus almost square the circle, nine DLR institutes with 18 departments are currently working on innovative solutions to challenges in the fields of train set concepts, lightweight railcar construction, energy management, acoustics and driving dynamics. The greatest interdisciplinary remit is aerodynamics.