Meetings of the Supervisory Board
The Supervisory Board was involved in all decisions of fundamental significance for DBAG.
In the year under review, the Supervisory Board held four ordinary meetings and two extraordinary meetings, as well as one strategy meeting and one further two-day strategy retreat. The Supervisory Board also received detailed responses to questions on the Stuttgart 21/Wendlingen—Ulm project and the annual financial statements in two information meetings.
All Supervisory Board members fully participated in at least half of the meetings in the year under review. In the reporting period, any decisions were recorded in written form. Meetings of the Executive Committee, the Personnel Committee and the Audit and Compliance Committee were held in preparation for the meetings of the Supervisory Board of DB AG.
The main issues discussed in the plenary meetings were the development of Deutsche Bahn Group’s (DB Group’s) revenue, profit and employment situation, as well as significant capital expenditure and equity investment projects.
The Supervisory Board regularly discussed the progress and the cost development of the major Stuttgart 21/Wendlingen—Ulm project in its scheduled meetings and also in one special meeting during the reporting period, on each occasion joined by the Chairman of the Advisory Board of DB Projekt Stuttgart—Ulm GmbH.
In another extraordinary meeting of the Board, Michael Odenwald was elected as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of DB AG, following the departure of the previous Chairman, Prof. Dr. Dr. Utz-Hellmuth Felcht.
As part of the annual strategy meeting, the Board discussed the measures for the railway in Germany to be derived from the Federal Government’s transport policy as set out in the coalition agreement of the 19th legislative period. In addition, the Supervisory Board discussed operational conditions, particularly punctuality and operational quality and the customer and digitalization campaigns in long-distance and passenger transport.
In a further two-day strategy retreat, the Supervisory Board discussed in detail the measures necessary to stabilize and improve operational quality. Issues discussed included the management and improvement of network capacity, improvement of vehicle availability, the economic and operational situation of individual business units and the overarching measures to stabilize and optimize processes.
The Supervisory Board went on to make the necessary decisions, having received appropriate advice on significant individual circumstances, such as the procurement of additional ICE 4 train sets.
In addition, in December 2018, the Supervisory Board provided advice on mid-term planning for 2019 to 2023 for DB Group and approved DB Group’s budget for the 2019 financial year and DB Group’s capital expenditure plan for 2019 to 2023.