DB Schenker Rail acquired PCC Logistics and PTK Holding in mid-2009. Since that time, efforts have focused primarily on restructuring and realigning the smaller Group companies, which specialized primarily in coal transports. 'Acquiring 30 individual national companies and forming a company like DB Schenker Rail Polska S.A. that is able to compete internationally is a huge integration task,' said Werner. The company, which is headquartered in Zabrze, employs around 5,500 people and is one of the largest employers in the Silesian region. Top managers include both Polish and German executives.
Poland is the second largest market for European rail freight transportation after Germany. DB Schenker Rail Polska generated 110 million euros in external sales in the first half of 2010. It transported 42 million metric tons of freight, and transportation performance totaled 1.7 billion ton-kilometers. Business was negatively affected by the global financial crisis, flooding in Poland and drop in prices on the Polish rail transport market, however.
DB Schenker Rail Polska hopes to cement its position on the Polish market through new transport products and services and develop into a premium provider. 'We need to concentrate on what makes us stand out as a company of the DB Group: being a reliable and service-oriented partner for our customers. In the future, reliable quality, and not just price, will play an increasingly important role in the success of service providers in rail freight transportation. We have not always lived up to this standard, but we have set it as our definitive aim for 2011. Our goal is innovative customer-oriented concepts, not market shares at all costs,' continued Werner.
The company already began offering the Silesia Line together with DB Schenker Rail Deutschland AG early this year. Customer demand is now so high that reinforcement trains have had to be used on this route since May. Poland's role as a transit country for the further development of international transports on East-West routes will also be used to a greater extent in the future. The number of transports on these routes has increased in the first half of this year, with primarily coal, timber, building materials and auto parts being transported. In addition, new products are being developed in other industries to reduce our dependence on the coal sector.
DB Schenker Rail Polska S.A. is aiming to spur on realignment of the company and secure its ability to compete through targeted investments. In the company's port business, over 90 million Polish zlotys (PLN) will be invested by 2018 in new transshipment facilities and cranes in cooperation with the Szczecin and Swinoujscie port authority. A new container terminal will begin operating soon, increasing the annual transshipment capacity of DB Port Szczecin to up to 220,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, a unit of measure for the capacity of container ships and port transshipment volume). Plans to upgrade the vehicle fleet are also in the works. For the past few months, the company has been pushing ahead with certification of the modern Class 66 locomotive and the importing of 40 locomotives in this class by 2015.
'Through these investments we are ensuring that our aims are implemented over the long term. We will make rail freight transportation in Poland more attractive and shift more transports from the road to rail for our customers.'
