Encouraging railway transport growth in Germany
Posted: 14 April 2012 | | No comments yet
In 1993, Germany initiated its structural railway reform. Bundesbahn became Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG) and the aim of the reform was to get more traffic on the railways to limit the burden on the budget and to create more competition. Today, one can say that this comprehensive reform was a complete success.
The transport performance of freight and passenger traffic increased considerably, and competition on the rail is clearly increasing, the same as group turnover, productivity and the overall operating results of DB AG.
Due to the economic crisis, turnover, profit and freight transport performance in 2009 decreased as expected but, since 2010, figures have been increasing in these areas.
The reform process is being consistently reviewed to progress even further. In order to successfully master the challenges of the European rail transport market and to ensure further growth in the railway sector, we need economically strong and successful railway undertakings.
In 1993, Germany initiated its structural railway reform. Bundesbahn became Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG) and the aim of the reform was to get more traffic on the railways to limit the burden on the budget and to create more competition. Today, one can say that this comprehensive reform was a complete success.
The transport performance of freight and passenger traffic increased considerably, and competition on the rail is clearly increasing, the same as group turnover, productivity and the overall operating results of DB AG.
Due to the economic crisis, turnover, profit and freight transport performance in 2009 decreased as expected but, since 2010, figures have been increasing in these areas.
The reform process is being consistently reviewed to progress even further. In order to successfully master the challenges of the European rail transport market and to ensure further growth in the railway sector, we need economically strong and successful railway undertakings.
Our first objective is to make the railway more customer-friendly and service-oriented. First and foremost, the railway has to ‘be there’ for the customers and we are making good progress here. The quality and service of DB is clearly beginning to bear fruit. An important success factor is rolling stock, and the railway undertakings and the manufacturers have joint responsibility in this area. In order to speed up the required modernisation of the train fleet we are currently restructuring the responsibilities between railway undertakings, manufacturers and supervisory authorities. Safety and technical reliability are at the centre of attention here.
The Federal Government, in principle, continues to pursue the aim of further privatisation steps through the participation of private capital in DB AG. However, we are of the opinion that the preconditions for this do not yet exist. What remains clear for us is that the infrastructure sectors will not be privatised. The Federal Government will continue to bear the responsibility for maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure, because we consider its provision to be an important task of the public sector.
Efficient transport infrastructures are an important prerequisite for the growth and competitiveness of our economy. In particular, the state has to ensure that the rules of competition are fair and that they are clear key elements of our railway policy. Revising the regulatory legislation, strengthening competition on the rail and increasing the safety in rail transport are among our current core issues. We are revising the regulatory legislation in the General Railways Act and will further strengthen the Federal Network Agency as the regulatory authority. All these activities are aimed at continuing the success story in rail transport which started with the railway reform. Wherever it makes sense, we will encourage the shift of traffic to the railways and the waterways in order to achieve the environmental protection and climate change objectives and to ease the burden on the roads.
The provision of funding required to replace capital assets and to construct new and upgrade existing railway infrastructure is of great importance to the Federal Government, because of the forecast growth in levels of traffic. At present, there are plans to spend nearly €4 billion annually until 2014 for investments in the rail sector. Of these investment funds, the Federal Government will make €2.5 billion available every year to the railway infrastructure companies of DB AG for the preservation of the existing network. As an essential return for this, the network has to be maintained to the agreed quality. Approximately €1.5 billion will be spent on the realisation of the development and new construction of the federal rail infrastructure as required. Bottlenecks in traffic between seaports and the hinterland are to be eliminated with a special programme.
We want to continue the initiated opening of the railway markets for international traffic. After opening-up the access to the rail freight network in 2007, the European rail network was opened up for international passenger services from 2010. The main aim here continues to be fair conditions of competition
