Study visit to Frankfurt

On 24 June, the Transport Category held its 2nd Extraordinary Meeting in Frankfurt. The meeting was combined with a study visit to DB Schenker in Frankfurt. The members of the Transport Category were welcomed by Ms Silke Janser, Operations Manager at DB Schenker Rail, Mr Boris Dobberstein, Head of European Service Design at DB Schenker Rail and Mr Oliver Sellnick, Vice President, European Corridor Management at DB Netz.

Ms Janser started by presenting DB Schenker Rail - Operations Management, which is considered to be the "engine room" of DB Schenker Rail, from which every train and wagon in the European network is operated. The delegation had the opportunity to visit the Operations Management site. A team of highly trained professionals is responsible for the 24/7 dispatching, the control of the electrified engines and the daily operations.

Mr Dobberstein then took the floor to elaborate on the growth prospects of European rail freight. Although there were huge growth opportunities for rail freight, we could still fail, he explained. This could be attributed to four major reasons:

• downturn of the European economy
• insufficient investment
• unfavourable cost development
• failure to attract private investments.

He emphasised that high operational and financial efforts were necesarry to enable smooth European rail transport.

In the afternoon, Mr Sellnick continued the debate. DB Netz manages the largest and most complex network in Euope and had a revenue of EUR 4.6 billion on 2013. He underlined that DB Netz was a key promotor of international corridors. Building TEN-corridors and bringing rail freight corridors into existence were its main goals in order to create a competitive European network.