3 E’s described Innotrans 2010 – Energy efficiency, Ecology and Economy – by Juho

Europe’s transportation system is facing a challenging situation according to estimates, freight will grow by 50 % and passenger transport by 35 % by 2020. This together with the fact of on-going global megatrend of urbanization, people move from country side to cities, means lots of challenges and possibilities for the whole transportation industry. Traffic problems are growing in line with the economic expansion and demographic evolution. Besides this, transport generates almost one third of all CO2 emissions. This was the big picture for this year´s most important railway exhibition Innotrans 2010, held in the city of Berlin. Exhibition gathered international group of visitors and professionals from the railway industry, and presented advanced solutions for vehicles, infrastructure, components and systems.

During the exhibition we learned, that the railroad sector has certainly it’s position as environmentally friendly and efficient means of transporation. Because we are used to travel by full-electric and hybrid trains, energy efficiency perspective is easy to understand. But for me it was a surprise, that when we compare land efficiency of urban area between passenger car, bus, tram and finally metro we get the following figures: number of people crossing a 3 to 5 metre-wide space in an hour in an urban environment for car is 2,000, for bus 9,000, for tram 22,000 and for metro 50,000.

CuproBraze Alliance did certainly the right decision when deciding to focus on railway sector during year 2010. During the fair there was lot of interest in CuproBraze technology, both in OE and refurbishment side. Life-cycle thinking in terms of durability, maintainability, repairability and recyclability supports the selection of CuproBraze heat exchangers for re-powering projects for diesel engines as well as for new projects of hybrid locomotives and full-electric locomotives. And even more, year 2012 will entail major changes to engine and aftertreatment technology. The reason is European Comission´s Non-Road Mobile Machinery Directive (NRMM) and it’s Stage 3B, launched just 3 years after the previous step 3A. While using technologies to reduce harmful CO2, NOx and PM emissions of new engines, the heat-load to engine cooling system increases dramatically. Up to +30 % additions have been witnessed. This calls for CuproBraze –technology.

Heartfelt thanks to all colleagues and visitors I had a pleasure to communicate with during these four days in Berlin!