Customer : LOHR
Lohr is a privately-owned French group based in Alsace near Strasbourg. For over 60 years, it has been a world specialist in the design, manufacture and marketing of systems for transporting goods and people, and generates 80% of its sales from exports. With a global industrial footprint comprising six plants on three continents and a workforce of 2,000, the Lohr group has secured its position as world leader in car-carrier vehicles, is developing its piggyback transport business and is promoting projects to enhance mobility.
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Area of intervention
DRAISY, a very light train designed for passenger transport, is intended to breathe new life into small railway lines in rural areas.
A 100% battery-powered electric train, DRAISY recharges rapidly in stations, with no impact on passenger services. It meets the needs of almost 9,000 km of lines known as ‘Fine Service Lines’ in France, as well as the needs of international networks. This very light train exerts a reduced load on the rails (<10 t per axle), and is equipped with steerable axles. These two major innovations help to limit rail wear. DRAISY incorporates frugal solutions from the world of road transport. Taken together, these innovations considerably reduce the cost of operation and maintenance compared with current solutions (60% less expensive).
Along with three other partners, GCK Battery, Stations-e and the IRT Railenium, the SNCF and LOHR have won the ‘Digitalisation and Decarbonisation of Rail Transport’ AMI with DRAISY, as part of the fourth Programme d’investissements d’avenir (PIA4) aimed at designing tomorrow’s railways and optimising their operation. As part of the consortium, LOHR is supplying the rolling stock compatible with the DRAISY solution.
HAIKU DESIGN created the exterior design of DRAISY for LOHR. The study carried out with the manufacturer since the genesis of the project in 2020 has resulted in a design solution whose general line is defined by a frugal, reassuring, local and innovative design. The design breaks away from traditional railway formal codes. Its strong identity is characterised by its powerful and reassuring extremities, its friendly and ‘smiling’ faces, its large glazed surfaces that encourage visual communication between outside and inside, and finally, by its taut and continuous lines on a smooth and homogeneous volume in shuttle architecture. The design, which absorbs all the technical constraints, expresses the innovation expected in the use of this new train for years to come. DRAISY is a new ‘object’ of mobility, welcoming, close to the needs of users, and efficient.
