Well trained

Deutsche Bahn’s Spokesperson for Track Infrastructure, Hans-Georg Zimmerman, took time out from his busy schedule to reveal to EU Infrastructure the company’s strategy for sustainability, growth and improved efficiency.

“Our forecasts predict that rail traffic will increase continuously until 2025, and so to cope with this increase, bottlenecks – which are already extensively used – will have to be extended.”
-Hans-Georg Zimmerman

Deutsche Bahn's (DB) sleek HQ in the heart of Berlin is a fittingly gleaming edifice. Sparkling against the backdrop of the Sony Center in the city's Potsdamer Platz area, the company's blood-red 'DB' logo is beamed for miles across Berlin's flat expanses, leaving Berliners and the millions of tourists who visit the city each year in no doubt as to who is in charge of transport here. While the BVG-run U-Bahn (underground metro service) might be older and more extensive, it is DB's overland S-Bahn train network that proves the backbone of the city's ultra-efficient transport network.

With Berlin as the hub, Deutsche Bahn's reach and influence spreads throughout the four corners of Germany, linking east with west, north with south, Scandinavia with the Mediterranean and providing every corner of Europe with a fast, efficient and extremely safe mode of transport. Indeed, some two billion passengers thank DB for arriving on time each and every year. The company shoulders massive responsibility, but does so with the professionalism, technical expertise and clockwork-efficiency that we have come to expect from one of Germany's foremost field leaders.

This is not to say that DB is able to operate unhindered by economic and environmental pressures; the past few years have been just as challenging for DB as they have been for any other large organisation, and a number of strategies have been devised in order to stave off cutbacks, cope with a different type of customer demand and prove their sustainability credentials. "Our forecasts predict that rail traffic will increase continuously until 2025, and so to cope with this increase, bottlenecks - which are already extensively used - will have to be extended," said Hans-Georg Zimmerman, Spokesperson for Track Infrastructure at Deutsche Bahn. "In order to close several gaps of capacity, DB has, as a strategic approach, set up a management capacity arm called 'Kapazitatsmanagement', which has enabled us to define routes where extension is essential, which will prove to be extremely beneficial for both passenger and freight traffic."

With such exponential growth predicted, DB has already begun taking steps to ensure the flow of rail traffic throughout Germany can continue unhindered. "There are currently 37 defined single measures along the north-south axis which should be fully realised by 2017, which will efficiently absorb future rail traffic volumes in Germany.

"Besides the realisation of these single measures, DB has also developed new concepts for upgrading the main routes, alternative routes, and junctions in order to create greater possibilities for new rail capacity with the given capital expenditure at our disposal."

Expansion investment

DB is organised as a business group and has over 500 subsidiaries, of which one - DB Netz AG - is responsible for the rail infrastructure. As the DB organisation continues to grow, DB Netz AG is tasked with ensuring that the increased volumes of passenger and freight traffic is delivered and transported satisfactorily and punctually throughout the country, not least at the ports and borders. "DB Netz has implemented a special program for developing the infrastructure in the seaport's back country," says Zimmermann. "The 'Sofortprogramm Seehafenhinterlandverkehr' [crash program for seaport back country traffic] is part of the master plan for freight traffic and logistics of the federal ministry for traffic, building structure and urban development. This program contains various measures which can be realised with small investments and show results in the direct catchment area of seaports and the back country to increase route capacity."

Zimmermann reveals that the implementation of this program has seen route capacity accomplished within the past two years. "In 2008 the first measures were realised in Duisburg seaport and one year later single measures in the bottleneck of Hamburg and further parts of the project 'Konzeption Westliche Ruhr I'." This program has attracted in excess of €90 million in recent investment, while the total volume cost of the project came in at more than €300 million.

"In addition to the extension of railway lines," continues Zimmermann, "DB is increasing the capacity of the rail network by developing new methods and tools in the area of distribution (guidance of transport streams), technologies (free float), railway schedules (system routes) and operations (disposition procedures)." Free float is a new project that was implemented by DB Netz AG in 2009 and has been especially designed for long freight trains in excess of 835 metres operating on the line between Padborg and Maschen.

DB Netz AG is also developing and testing a prototype for the realisation of partly automated recognition, and seeking a solution for the conflicts and regulation of train destination.

Sustainable Bahn

DB is involved in a number of green initiatives too, working diligently to ensure that its rail network is as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. No mean feat, but a challenge that DB's energy supply company - DB energie GmbH - is meeting head on. "The DB Energie GmbH intends to increase the percentage of the renewable traction energy from its current level of 18.5 percent to 30 percent by 2020," says Zimmermann.

Another green initiative that DB Energie is concerned with is renewable energy. "Currently," reveals Zimmermann, "DB Energie obtains most of its green power from hydro energy. However, since here in Germany hydro energy is almost exhausted, one alternative we have highlighted is wind power. On March 1^st this year, DB Energie generated 59,000 MWh from the Markisch-Linden wind farm in Brandeburg. This amount of energy equates to the annual power requirements of six ICE-trains and is generated as rotary current, transformed by converter mills to 16.7-hz and then passed into the traction electricity supply lines. The current supplied by the wind farms partly replaces the energy previously gained at the 50-hz market."

Despite such impressive figures, DB is still cautious about adopting what it calls the 'unstable wind feed' delivered by the Markisch-Linden wind farm as a main source of energy. "Alongside an immediate C02 reduction, DB will determine, via practical experience, whether it is economically viable to add this unstable wind feed to our power portfolio," admits Zimmermann. "Based on this stock data DB will then make a decision on the future extension of adopting wind power for the company.

"Our investments in modern converter techniques and the conclusion of long-term power supply contracts for new generating plants are set to have a positive impact on our C02 balance. We have commissioned the use of a modern coal power station - Datteln 4 - that is 20 percent more efficient than previously used power stations and will save the environment 790,000 tons of C02 per year."

On the track, DB is equally progressive in its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint without impacting upon the high levels of service it has become renowned for. "DB Energie has also worked hard at substituting older converters for those that transform 50-hz current obtained from the public power grid to traction current," says Zimmermann. "Because these converters work electronically and are static, they are able to operate at a significantly higher-level of energy efficiency, saving 69,000 tons of C02 per year."