Deutsche Bahn

A digital railway for modern Europe

Headquartered in Berlin, Deutsche Bahn is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europea. The transport giant came into existence in 1994, and carries about two billion passengers each year.

Project Mission

To redefine the reliability of railway transportation, by giving railway operators the tools to manage train assets at scale.

Challenge

Late-running trains causes over 800 million euros in lost annual revenue

In 2017, Deutsche Bahn recorded more than a quarter of trains running behind schedule. The consequences were severe: over 800 million euros in lost annual revenue; delays in the delivery of essential goods and medicines; and perhaps worst of all - a tarnished reputation.

To try and solve this problem, Deutsche Bahn examined its operations from top to bottom. Each department launched an investigation to find out what was going wrong. From a stuck caliper to bad weather to cars missing from trains, the possibilities were many.

Two weeks later, any department that found a fault was asked to return with a diagnosis and a proposed solution. With frustrating regularity, each department would find itself blameless, and point the finger. This put Deutsche Bahn in a bind. Something was causing a delay, and its internal mechanisms for solving the problem were coming up short. If Deutsche Bahn was unable discover the cause, there was no way they could fix it.

Approach

By immersing itself in Deutsche Bahn business, Hackerbay discovers 40% of delays stem from Provisioning department

Hackerbay began its collaboration with Deutsche Bahn in November 2017, by getting to know the rail company from the inside out. We next started collecting and analysing the data gathered by the departments, but quickly found this existing data was not enough; we needed to understand the company's organisational structure, in order to find the root cause of the issue.
By doing so, we learned that every successful train trip required the coordination of four distinct departments. First was Provisioning. This department ensured that if for example, an eight-car train was meant to leave at 7:03am, there actually was an eight-car train waiting at the station. Then there was Conducting—they made sure that a crew had been engaged to operate that train. Then came Scheduling, which ensured that no other train was set to occupy the tracks at the same time as the 7:03am. And finally there was Maintenance. They, of course, kept trains functional and conducted necessary inspections.