Markets and strategy

We are facing a period of significant change. The mobility market is growing and changing. Digital solutions are massively accelerating this development. New forms of mobility are emerging and car traffic is increasingly being challenged. Social structures are undergoing changes: the age gap is continuing to expand; cities are growing and stretching their infrastructures to their limits; rural areas are shrinking but must nevertheless maintain their access to mobility. In order to co-create the future, we have further developed our strategy in key areas. By taking this new direction, we are actively contributing to the three dimensions of DB2020+:

• Economic dimension: The core of our strategy is the development of our stations to increase passenger growth and visitor numbers. For this purpose, we intend to im­­prove the customer experience at our stations and also impact the area around the stations. In addition to expanding mobility hubs, we are creating pleasant amenities and increasing the number of offers and services at our stations. In the first step, we will develop specific designs for 16 future stations and trial them in 2019/2020. Free WiFi access at large stations and comfortable waiting areas already allow passengers to make the most of their waiting times. We are creating additional high-performance WiFi access points and are developing new digital services for our customers. Through new marketing concepts such as Station Food and the expansion of our branch mix, we are creating attractive consumption and retail offers. By continuously optimizing our cleaning and maintenance concepts and increasing the budget for it, we are improving the baseline quality of our stations and adjusting the capacity of stations with bottlenecks caused by high volumes. We are also continuing to work towards the quality initiatives set out as part of the Railway of the Future. In a special program during the year under review, we also redesigned 30 heavily frequented S-Bahn (metro) stations and improved the amenities for our customers.
• Social dimension: We work continuously on further developing our corporate culture and the satisfaction of our employees. Our guidelines in this effort are the five elements of customer focus, cooperation, leadership, re­­sponsibility and performance. At the same time, a per­­formance culture, in addition to involving lofty goals and being able to accept criticism, includes an appreciation for the contribution that every employee makes. A common target culture is created in dialog formats and through management training. We focus on tools that promote continuing vocational training, to offer attractive development opportunities for high performers and those with high potential.
• Environmental dimension: From 2019, our top 15 stations will operate using eco-power. By 2030, we intend to reduce absolute primary energy use by 30% compared to 2010 and 15% compared to 2017. As an operator of a complex portfolio of facilities we are committed to using environmentally friendly facilities and building technologies. When modernizing old buildings or constructing new ones, we therefore investigate the use of innovative lighting technologies no. 50, geothermal energy production, combined heat and power generation and photovoltaic systems no. 50 at all sites.