Deutsche Bahn reports 70 million more passengers and 10 per cent higher freight performance in 2006

Berlin, Germany – In 2006, traffic performance by Deutsche Bahn AG showed a substantial year-on-year increase in both the passenger and freight sectors. These provisional results for financial year 2006 were announced by Hartmut Mehdorn, Chairman of the Board of Management and CEO of Deutsche Bahn, in Berlin 2007-02-02. Mehdorn stated that performance in terms of revenues and earnings had also surpassed the forecasts. “On the whole, we can say that 2006 was a record year for Deutsche Bahn.” He added that the trends for rail had been far better than for the transport market as a whole and that DB had succeeded in regaining market shares for the fourth year in succession. “Once again, we succeeded in increasing our performance in the overall transport and logistics market and consolidated our leading position.“

Over the past twelve months, some 1.85 billion people travelled on DB trains, which is almost four per cent or almost 70 million more passengers than in 2005. “The World Cup brought us roughly 15 million additional passengers; most of the new passengers, however, were attracted to DB because we have improved our products,” said Mehdorn, quoting new rolling stock and better journey times in long-distance and regional services as examples of these improvements. The long-distance sector benefited in particular from the inauguration of new lines: the north-south connection in Berlin now means that Leipzig is just a one-hour rail journey from the capital, while the new-build and upgraded Nuremberg–Ingolstadt–Munich line means the two Bavarian metropolises are now just 60 minutes apart. Total traffic performance in the DB rail passenger transport sector rose by a good three per cent to approx. 75 billion passenger-kilometres.

The growth in rail freight traffic was even more pronounced last year, with the Railion Group reporting an increase of approx. 10.5 per cent, so that traffic performance rose by more than nine billion tonne-kilometres to over 97 billion tonne-kilometres. “Rail has not enjoyed such growth rates for 25 years,” said Mehdorn. He stated that exact figures and further information about the Group’s financial performance would be announced at the balance-sheet press conference to be held at the end of March.

Deutsche Bahn has approx. 230,000 employees worldwide. The Group has 1500 company locations in 150 countries. It is the largest transport undertaking and the largest infrastructure enterprise in Europe and the second-largest transportation and logistics services provider in the world.