The digitalisation of the tram depot is a mammoth undertaking that began ten years ago and took concrete shape in 2016 when planning approval was granted by the Federal Office of Transport (FOT). Stefan Zimmermann, system engineer at VBZ: “We analyse, optimise and automate all processes in the depot wherever possible – from the arrival of the vehicles to their provision and departure.” In doing so, VBZ not only relies on numerous fail-safe controls, frequency converters and peripheral modules from Siemens – visualisation of the entire operation now also takes place on the web-based visualisation system WinCC Unified. All important information and the status of the tracks, signals and gates can be seen at multiple control points. This information is also displayed on two large SIMATIC HMI panels at the control centre – the central operating point of the system. In the future, web technology will also be used to call up the dispatching and control center websites with current operational information or even the depot's operating manual directly in the control center.

The new web-based plant visualisation system SIMATIC WinCC Unified supports the digitalisation process in mechanical engineering and construction. Data from the IT environment can be easily integrated and summarised as part of a uniform operating concept using open interfaces, such as the OPC UA communication protocol. The SIMATIC WinCC Unified system is scalable, from the WinCC Unified panel through to distributed, PC-based systems. Engineering is made entirely in the TIA Portal.