{"id":295476,"date":"2025-10-03T18:11:39","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T08:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=66433"},"modified":"2025-10-03T18:11:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T08:11:39","slug":"volkswagens-ecoduo-pilot-project-proves-compatibility-with-rail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=295476","title":{"rendered":"Volkswagen\u2019s EcoDuo pilot project proves compatibility with rail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Over the past year, a German consortium ran an intermodal pilot project to assess the compatibility between EcoDuo trucks with rail freight transport. The tests showed that the only requirements for enabling such services concern terminal upgrades to enable the coupling and uncoupling of the trailers.<\/strong><br \/>\n<span id=\"more-66433\"><\/span>The project was carried out by The German Automotive Association (VDA), Kombiverkehr, Volkswagen Group, Schmitz Cargobull, Ses\u00e9 and T\u00dcV Rheinland. EcoDuo vehicles allow for the transport of two semi-trailers with one tractor unit. The test entailed transporting Volkswagen products between Wolfsburg, in Germany, to the Barcelona Morrot terminal in Spain.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018No additional effort\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Traditionally, all this distance has been fully covered by trucks. With the pilot project, however, EcoDuo vehicles were moved by road between Volkswagen\u2019s facility in Wolfsburg to the MegaHub in Lerthe. From there, the semi-trailers are de-coupled and placed on freight trains taking them to Barcelona and moved back on the road for last-mile deliveries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe results of the pilot project also show that the EcoDuo combination can be transported by rail without additional effort. Adjustments are only required at the terminals to enable the coupling and uncoupling of the trailers\u201d, VDA said. The next step is now to put the EcoDuo in regular operations.<\/p>\n<p>To do this, it will be necessary to adjust the current regulation on road traffic exemptions for oversized vehicles and vehicle combinations, the association explained. \u201cThe goal is to introduce &#8220;Type 6&#8221; as a vehicle type for combinations up to 32 meters in length. It is intended to be used on a separately defined positive network, which also includes combined terminals\u201d, VDA added.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"max-width: 100%; margin: 20px auto; border-radius: 6px; overflow: hidden; box-shadow: 0 2px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1);\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"fluid alignnone\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; display: block;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/EcoDuo-trucks.webp\" alt=\"The EcoDuo vehicle\" width=\"1200\" height=\"898\" \/><figcaption style=\"padding: 10px 15px; font-size: 14px; background: #f8f8f8; text-align: left; color: #555;\">The EcoDuo vehicle. Image: \u00a9 VDA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past year, a German consortium ran an intermodal pilot project to assess the compatibility between EcoDuo trucks with rail freight transport. The tests\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1329,14083,82,65,68,18356,47,1024,14088,14089,18357],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-295476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barcelona","category-ecoduo","category-germany","category-intermodal","category-kombiverkehr","category-lerthe","category-rail-news","category-spain","category-vda","category-volkswagen","category-wolfsburg","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297029,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476\/revisions\/297029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}