Q-tainer on the Rise

A complete success for RSRG’s mobile data centre during the Hamburg–Berlin general refurbishment project: Since August 2025, the Q-tainer has been operating on behalf of DB InfraGO along a five-kilometre construction section near Aumühle on the Hamburg–Berlin high-performance corridor, clearly demonstrating how autonomous drones and artificial intelligence will support the railway construction sites of tomorrow.

In operation, the Q-tainer quickly proved its enormous value: automated and near real-time comparisons between planned and actual progress significantly increase transparency and enable much more efficient project management. Everyone works with the same information, allowing decisions to be made based on reliable data.

The current pilot project impressively demonstrates how reliably the Q-tainer can capture and analyse construction progress for the noise barrier and cable civil works packages. Images captured by the autonomous drone are analysed automatically. Based on all identified construction elements, the actual progress is calculated and displayed as a continuous red line, which is then compared in the dashboard with the planned progress curve.

This not only enables deviations to be identified at an early stage but also allows them to be analysed immediately and used for optimisation, thanks to the comprehensive data collection, including weather observations and other relevant project information.

This is precisely where the strengths of the Q-tainer lie: with every project, the system becomes smarter. The growing database makes it possible to generate forecasts and realistic progress predictions for future, comparable construction projects. Delays can therefore be identified earlier, risks reduced, and schedules planned with significantly greater accuracy.