GERMAN Railway announced on April 9 that its infrastructure business DB Netz AG was to restructure its activities on a corridor basis. The 37500 route-km network will be divided into 22 route corridors, in order to co-ordinate planning and maintenance work more efficiently.
Over the next three years, DB Netz expects to invest around DM15bn in maintenance and upgrading of the network, including trackwork, structures and signalling. Traditionally, each project has been managed separately, with various works taking place on the same route at different times. Bringing the planning and implementation together into route groups will allow better co-ordination, and is expected to reduce the number of temporary speed restrictions by around 50%.
DBNetz has also introduced a new structure of track access charges for use of the German rail network. After changes to meet EU directives, these came into operation on April 1, with reductions in the cost for smaller open access operators. n
