Railfreight subsidiary DB Schenker Rail witnessed a 10% decline in volumes to 341 million tonnes, while performance fell 17.3% to 93.9 billion tonne-km. The overall plunge in freight volumes had a knock-on effect on infrastructure usage, and DB Network reports a 3.9% fall in traffic to 1 billion train-km. Despite a 0.1% increase in ridership on regional services, overall passenger numbers fell by 0.7% to 14.2 million, with a 0.7% decline in long-distance passengers attributed largely to the reduced availability of ICE trains, which have been subject to increased wheelset inspections. "Maintaining the efficiency of the company and further reducing debt will be high on our agenda again this year," says CEO Mr Rüdiger Grube. Photo: Robin Ralston
