SmartRail World interview with Dirk Van Den Wouwer

This week in SmartRail World: Televic GSPs director of R&D, Dirk Van Den Wouwer, talks to Dave Songer about the latest research, the changes he’s seen in the rail industry, why he thinks transport is important to society as a whole and, of course, what's been his favourite rail journey.

"Over the past nine years, I have seen rail catching up with the latest technologies in a spectacular way, a situation mainly driven by the challenges of all actors involved. Be they the train operating companies or the train builders, all are focused on improving the customer experience, lowering costs, reducing ecological footprints and improving capacity. The key to these challenges is innovation, which is one of the core values of Televic GSP. Hence, for me as an engineer, the rail environment is incredibly interesting because public transport is vitally important for our society. In addition, I like working in different parts of the world, which my job requires me to do; people and cultures intrigue me.

Together with our portfolio we have grown a team that build new products, deploy them in different markets around the world and then get to see the positive results, which is great because I find witnessing people growing and being enthusiastic about their accomplishments so rewarding."