Significant events

• Scope: disasters and accidents, sabotage, extortion, global political events

Our activities are based on a technologically complex, net­­worked production system. In general, we try to combat the risk of operational disruptions through regular maintenance and by taking on qualified employees, coupled with continuous quality assurance and improvement of our processes. The nature of rail transport as an open system means that operations can be negatively impacted by certain factors (such as natural disasters, accidents, sabotage and theft) over which we have only limited influence. Our efforts in such cases focus on minimizing the potential effects. However, this could also result in cost risks from countermeasures.

Damage to our infrastructure caused by weather conditions leads to loss of income, penalty payments and to a higher resource requirement for repairing damage and preventative measures, amongst other consequences. In order to adapt the means of production to extreme weather events (expansion of vegetation management) and to avoid restricted operating quality due to weather-related constraints, DB Group is working with national and inter­national experts on the adaptation of external technical regulations to altered climatic conditions.

Additional measures to improve public security, including at passenger stations, such as upgrading video surveillance, may lead to additional cost burdens.