Deutsche Bahn


is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. With its head office in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company.
DB was founded after the merger between and the East German in 1994 after the unification of Germany and has been operating ever since. is the second-largest transport company in Germany, after the German postal and logistics company / DHL. DB provides both long-distance and regional transport, serving around 132 million long distance passengers and 1.6 billion regional passengers in 2022. In 2022, DB transported 222 million tons of cargo.

Company profile

The group is divided into several companies, including , DB Regio and DB Cargo. The Group subsidiary DB InfraGO also operates large parts of the German railway infrastructure, making it the largest rail network in Europe.
The company generates about half of its total revenue from operating rail transport, with the other half of the business comprising further transport and logistics businesses, as well as various service providers. The company generates further revenue through public transport contracts and support services for infrastructure maintenance and expansion. The Deutsche Bahn Group is divided into various organizational units that perform their tasks with subsidiaries.

Rail transport

DB Personenverkehr is the unit that manages passenger travel within Germany. Originally called , this group is responsible for the managing, servicing and running of German passenger services. This group is divided into and.
is a semi-independent division of that operates long-distance passenger trains in Germany. It was founded in 1999 in the second stage of the privatisation of German Federal Railways under the name of and renamed in 2003.
operates all Intercity Express and Intercity trains in Germany as well as in some neighboring countries and several EuroCity and EuroCityExpress trains throughout Europe. Unlike its sister companies and, still holds a de facto monopoly in its segment of the market as it operates hundreds of trains per day, while all competitors' long-distance services combined amount to no more than 10–15 trains per day.
Additionally operated a few long-distance coach services throughout Germany, called , which since have been terminated.
is the subsidiary of that operates passenger trains on short and medium distances in Germany. Unlike its long-distance counterpart,, it does not operate trains on its own account. Traffic is ordered and paid for by the or their respective regional train operation supervisors.
Some states have awarded long-term contracts to , in others, DB Regio's operations are decreasing, in North Rhine-Westphalia, their market share is expected to be lower than 50%. rail services are divided into several regional companies:
The bus services consist of 25 bus companies, which have subsidiary companies themselves.

Logistics

The Transport and Logistics division acted in the market with the business units and, which were combined under the umbrella of DB Schenker, and the Intermodal division, which operates in combined transport. In 2016, rail freight transport was separated from logistics and was renamed.
In cooperation with the logistics provider time:matters, DB also offers the transport of shipments weighing up to on its EC/IC/ICE trains.

Infrastructure

DB InfraGO

The infrastructure division was divided into the , DB Station&Service and business units. At the end of December 2023, DB Netz merged with DB Station&Service to create DB InfraGO AG. The new company is intended to reduce poor communication between the two previously separate infrastructure firms.

DB Engineering & Consulting

, which is responsible for construction supervision, construction planning and maintenance, is also assigned to this department without being part of a business area. Via its subsidiary DB Engineering & Consulting, DB signed a memorandum of understanding with Iranian rail operator Bonyad Eastern Railways in May 2017 and shortly after a consulting contract with Islamic Republic of Iran Railways; both projects were abandoned after the United States imposed new sanctions against Iran and said firms doing business with Iran would be barred from doing business with the United States.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority's board approved on 15 November 2017 an early train operator contract with DB Engineering & Consulting USA. The firm is the U.S. arm of Deutsche Bahn AG. As early train operator, DB Engineering & Consulting will assist CHSRA with planning, designing and implementing the state's high-speed rail program.

Foreign ventures

Arriva

Deutsche Bahn purchased Arriva in August 2010 off the London Stock Exchange. To satisfy the European Commission, Arriva's German operations were rebranded Netinera and sold. As of July 2022, Arriva operated 15,700 buses and 800 railway vehicles in 14 European countries, mainly in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In 2019, unsuccessfully tried to sell the business. In October 2023, Deutsche Bahn agreed on terms to sell Arriva to I Squared Capital, with the transaction scheduled to be completed in 2024. The sale was completed on 4 June 2024 at a reported price of £1.4 billion.

DB Cargo UK

DB also has interests abroad, owning the United Kingdom's largest rail freight operator, DB Cargo UK, which also operates the British Royal Train and also has interests in Eastern Europe. It is possible to obtain train times for any journey in Europe from 's website.

Trans-Eurasia Logistics

is a joint venture with Russian Railways that operates container freight trains between Germany and China via Russia.

History

Background: the Deutsche Reichsbahn

The railway network in Germany dates back to 1835 when the first tracks were laid on a route between Nuremberg and. The Deutsche Reichsbahn operated from 1920 through the Weimar and Nazi eras until 1949, when it was split between East and West Germany into two successor entities, Deutsche Reichsbahn and Deutsche Bundesbahn, respectively. They remained separate throughout the Cold War era division of Germany, and joined after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, and German reunification in 1990. On 1 January 1994 and were merged to form one company,, the successor organisation to the Reichsbahn. At the same time, adopted its current logo and DB abbreviation. Kurt Weidemann modernised the logo and typographer designed a new corporate font known as. When Deutsche Bahn was formed in January 1994, it became a joint stock-company, and was designed to operate the railways of both the former East and West Germany after unification in October 1990 as a single, uniform, and private company. There are three main periods of development in this unified German railway: its formation, its early years, and the period from 1999 to the present.
Originally, DBAG had its head office in but moved to in central Berlin in 1996, where it occupies a 26-storey office tower designed by at the eastern end of the Sony Centre and named. As the lease was to expire in 2010, DB had announced plans to relocate to, and in 2007 a proposal for a new head office by 3XN Architects won an architectural competition which also included Foster + Partners, Dominique Perrault and. However, these plans were put on hold due to the 2008 financial crisis, and the lease was extended. Construction of the new head office building was started in 2017 under the title "" according to the designs by 3XN. Finished in February 2020, the Cube will house the legal offices of Deutsche Bahn, but not become the main head office.

1999 to present

The second step of the was carried out in 1999. All rolling stock, track, personnel, and real assets were divided between the subsidiaries of DBAG: . This new organisational scheme was introduced not least to implement European Community directive 91/440/EEC that requires open access operations on railway lines by companies other than those that own the rail infrastructure.
In December 2007, DB reorganised again, bringing all passenger services into its arm, logistics under and infrastructure and operations under.
The DB is owned by the Federal Republic. By the Constitution, the Federal Republic is required to retain a majority of the infrastructure stocks.
In 2008, it was agreed to "float" a portion of the business, meaning an end to the 100% share the German Federal Republic had in it, with a plan that 25% of the overall share would be sold to the private sector. However the onset of the 2008 financial crisis saw this cancelled.
In 2014, the Jewish community of Thessaloniki demanded that the, which is the successor of the, should reimburse the heirs of Greek Holocaust victims of Thessaloniki for train fares that they were forced to pay for their deportation from Thessaloniki to and Treblinka between March and August 1943.
In June 2018 controversy grew in the United Kingdom over widespread cancellations of railway services and numerous delayed services operated by Deutsche Bahn in Britain, under its Northern brand. This resulted in Britain's Minister of Transport, Chris Grayling, setting up an enquiry into whether the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary had breached its contractual agreement to provide railway services in the north of England.
In 2024, Deutsche Bahn faced significant operational challenges during the Euro 2024 football tournament, including frequent train delays, cancellations, and infrastructure issues. The rail carrier reported a €1 billion half year net loss stemming from investments to repair its rail network, strikes and bad weather in July of the same year. As a result, Deutsche Bahn announced that they would shed 30,000 administrative jobs, roughly equal to 9% of their workforce.
In September 2024, the company came to an agreement with DSV of Denmark, a logistics company; in the agreement, DSV will acquire Schenker from Deutsche Bahn for $15.84 billion.