Important events

Floods

With extremely high levels of rain over multiple days, Storm Bernd led to severe floods in mid-July 2021, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, causing catastrophic damage to the affected regions. This also includes serious damage to our infrastructure. Tracks, switches, signal technology, bridges, stations, interlockings and vehicles were badly damaged. A total of about 600 km of track as well as more than 50 bridges and dozens of stations and stops were affected. A collective financing agreement on damage rectification has been concluded with the Federal Government. About 80% of the significant flood damages were able to be remedied in 2021. Further reconstruction of damaged lines and facilities continues.

Conclusion of the collective bargaining process

The agreement with the Railway and Transport Workers Union (Eisenbahn- und Verkehrsgewerkschaft; EVG) at the beginning of October 2021 concluded the collective bargaining agreement 2020/2021 in DB Group, during the course of which strikes were waged by the German Train Drivers’ Union (Gewerkschaft Deutscher Loko­motivführer; GDL) (strikes were called on a total of 16 days in 2021). Less than 1% of em­­ployees took part in the strikes.

Implementation of the Climate Action Program

Following the conclusion of discussions with the European Commission regarding the planned measures to promote rail transport as part of the Climate Action Program 2030 – adopted by the Federal Government in autumn 2019 – the Feder­­al Government implemented the first equity measure from the Climate Action Program 2030 at DBAG, amounting to€ 2.125 billion, for the years 2020 and 2021. The funds were passed on directly to DB Netz AG (€ 1.125 billion) and DB Sta­­tion&ServiceAG (€ 1 billion).