Herr Prof. Dirk Bruckmann

The free exchange of goods and services is one of the basic factors, which enables the economic success of economies. Only through the transport of goods today's industry division of labour has been made possible. This results in efficiencies, when goods are produced at the most appropriate place. Only the exchange of goods makes it possible to gain economies-of-scale.

Transport logistics has the goal to design this exchange of goods efficiently but also in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. The different transport modes are used thereby according to their specific strengths.

The chair focusses on the further development of rail-freight and intermodal transport. In addition to technological innovation thereby also organizational and commercial measures are considered. The main goal is to increase energy efficiency and to decrease costs of rail freight to improve its competitiveness. Another research filed is the distribution of goods in urban areas.

Dirk Bruckmann studied civil engineering at the University of Duisburg-Essen, where was examined in 1999 as an engineer. Subsequently, he was a research assistant at the Institute for Transportation Engineering and holds a PhD on "Development of a method for estimating the containerizable volume in single wagonload and optimization the production". The thesis was awarded with the Carl-Pirath Prize of the Deutsche Verkehrswissenschaftliche Gesellschaft.

From 2006 to 2010, Dirk Bruckmann was expert for infrastructure demand at SBB Cargo AG in Basel. He was project manager for intermodal terminal projects in Basel, Chiasso and the Limmattal and he was involved in the strategic realignment of SBB Cargo in combined transport. Furthermore he was single point of contact for the railway infrastructure operators in Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

In June 2010, he joined the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), where he was head of the logistics and rail-freight team at the Institute for Transport Planning and Systems. Main research topics were railway operations, optimization of single wagonload and the combined transport. He conducted at the ETH Zurich research and consulting projects for several federal offices and was involved in European research projects for wagonload traffic.