Business Optimization

The Challenge

Budget constraints are persistent hurdles for rail agencies, impacting not only their capital investments but also their ability to effectively manage and optimize day-to-day operating costs. As agencies seek to justify investment projects over both short and long-term horizons, they must navigate uncertainty and make complex decisions. Detailed financial analysis becomes paramount in comparing potential options and determining the real value and return on investment. Moreover, once investment decisions solidify, securing adequate funding is critical to the project’s full realization. However, the financial journey doesn’t stop there.

Striking the delicate balance between high-quality service delivery and efficient operating expenditures remains a challenge. Through meticulous planning, comprehensive analysis, and robust funding strategies, rail agencies can make informed decisions and investments that enhance both their future financial health and operational performance.

Our Service

Financial Analysis

Merging financial modeling with feasibility studies, we offer comprehensive insights into both business improvement areas and potential cost savings. Our team, proficient in accounting, finance, and operations, delivers detailed capital costing analyses, equipping clients with knowledge about upfront costs, long-term savings, and potential investment risks.

Moreover, our operation and maintenance (O&M) cost modeling is instrumental in ensuring the longevity and financial viability of rail projects. To guarantee reliability in our financial projections, we adhere to the FAST standard – Flexible, Appropriate, Structured, and Transparent.

Funding Strategy & Grant Writing Support

Securing adequate funding is pivotal for transforming plans into reality. We guide public transport agencies in identifying and accessing grant funding sources, culminating in the development of competitive grant strategies and applications. Our involvement is consistent throughout the grant writing process, enabling our clients to achieve funding for their projects.

Our Experience

DB E.C.O. North America and DB E.C.O. Group work with many public transport and governmental agencies within the U.S., Canada, and worldwide to develop comprehensive funding strategies and grant applications that consider their unique needs and resources. The financial modeling and feasibility studies conducted based on the FAST methodology hold up to reviews by authorities, independent auditors, and other stakeholders.

The Challenge

Rail and transit organizations, both public and private, grapple with ensuring organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Many face the complexities arising from undefined or less streamlined business processes and operational routines, which can be further accentuated by a shortage of specialized talent or expertise.

Navigating these challenges requires strong leadership, organizational reform, investment in technology, talent development, a culture of continuous improvement, and the ability to adeptly handle regulatory hurdles.

Our Service

Assessing Organizational Performance

In many organizational improvement projects, we begin by conducting a thorough assessment of the existing organizational performance and comparing to industry benchmarks. This diagnostic phase helps identify key performance gaps and areas of opportunity and understand the intrinsic and extrinsic value drivers of the organization. By analyzing both tangible and intangible assets, we highlight areas where value can be maximized, ensuring resources are allocated to initiatives that yield the highest returns.

Process Excellence

Streamlining processes is pivotal for achieving efficiency. We dissect existing processes, eliminating redundancies and bottlenecks. Through lean management principles and Six Sigma methodologies, we drive process optimization, ensuring tasks are accomplished faster, with fewer resources, and with better results.

Capability Building

Recognizing that an organization’s strength lies in its people, we focus on enhancing the capabilities of the workforce. From targeted training programs to workshops on best practices, we equip teams with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in their roles. We also assist in attracting and retaining specialized talent, ensuring that our clients are equipped with a formidable team.

Performance Management

A robust performance management system is essential for driving results and aligning individual and team objectives with the broader organizational vision. Beyond just metrics, the consistent implementation of regular performance dialogues key.

Performance dialogues are a simple, yet effective, way to make sure all areas and levels of an organization are aligned, addressing the most urgent issues efficiently. We help with implementing performance dialogues and assist our clients with identifying focus areas that require cross-departmental collaboration, setting up agendas, discussion structures, and effective KPI reporting formats.

Strategic Project & Program Management

Executing pivotal projects and programs is central to an organization’s strategic success, often setting the trajectory for growth and operational efficiency. We provide hands-on management for individual projects as well as for broader corporate programs.

This can range from offering dedicated Project Management Office (PMO) support to overseeing entire project portfolios. By combining our deep railway knowledge with established management practices, we ensure that projects not only meet their milestones but also align with the distinct challenges of the rail industry. The outcome? Projects that align with an organization’s overarching goals, deliver sustainable results on time, and uphold rigorous budget discipline.

Our Experience

Our advice is rooted in extensive experience with railway organizations, both new and established, in North America and globally. With Deutsche Bahn’s operational experience and DB E.C.O. Group’s global insights, we stand as premier rail planning and strategy consultants in North America. Our portfolio includes organizational optimization, process excellence, project and program management, and facilitating large-scale performance improvement initiatives.

The Challenge

Building a transit megaproject is a complex, multi-year, and expensive undertaking. Following U.S. and international best practices can help reduce budgets and get projects delivered faster. Whether building a light rail extension, regional rail expansion, or a new subway, DB E.C.O. North America can seamlessly integrate global experts into a project team to provide guidance on the governance, staffing, and processes to facilitate future success.

Our Service

Project Delivery Review

International success can be emulated in North America with solid project governance, knowledgeable staffing, improved internal processes, and following models from around the world. Drawing on our internal expertise and international best practices, DB E.C.O. North America evaluates the institutional and governance environment of the project region.

We offer recommendations to align the project to regional regulatory frameworks, local governance structures, stakeholder priorities, and applicable financial systems. We provide best-practice examples for staffing and contracting, identify strategies to simplify the project, and communicate insights to agency and regional leadership.

Project Management

At DB E.C.O. North America, our approach to transit project management is both comprehensive and finely tuned to the specific needs of each endeavor. Whether for large or small transit projects, we seamlessly integrate with agency staff, creating or reviewing project plans to ensure they reflect global best practices.

Our commitment to open communication encourages stakeholder engagement, ensuring a harmonious project environment. By drawing from a wealth of international best practices, we introduce world-class methodologies to both planning and execution phases.

Beyond this, our technical advisory incorporates advanced methodologies in construction planning, execution, oversight, system integration, testing, and validation that have been proven across major rail infrastructures globally. As we aim for timely delivery, we also advise on optimal contracting strategies, execute diligent project monitoring and reporting, and act as a vital bridge coordinating efforts between agencies and operators. This leads to projects that consistently not only meet but often surpass their targets, while aligning with the highest global standards.

Our Experience

Deutsche Bahn and DB E.C.O. Group have led projects in Germany and throughout the world with proven success. Throughout Europe, transit megaprojects are completed at significantly lower costs than in the U.S. Adjusting for purchase price parity and inflation, tunneled subways were completed in the German cities of Hamburg, Nuremberg, and Munich for less than $300M USD per mile.

Germany regularly builds at-grade light rail for less than $75M per mile. Other European cities, including Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, and Norway have been able to tunnel under their dense, historic cores for less than $500M per mile. We provide expert advice to public agencies, facilitating the successful delivery of crucial transit projects.

The Challenge

While many of the problems facing transit operations and project delivery appear to be technical, their roots are most often in the institutions and governance of the entities in charge of leading them. Governance encompasses both official and unofficial institutional structures and arrangements responsible for overseeing and managing transit services, coordinating plans, and executing projects. Often, not enough attention is paid to transit governance, stifling future decision making and limiting the possibility of new service models.

Our Service

Governance Review

By understanding the governance of institutions, including the board structure, agency authorities, and relationship with stakeholders, clients can get a better sense of how to approach existing operations or new initiatives. We examine the official and unofficial dynamics in which transportation services are delivered to better gauge what works and where problems arise. By suggesting methods to improve processes we promote client success.

Governance Reform

With an understanding of which elements of governance are working and which are not yet aligned with best practices, we work with clients to create tangible and actionable changes within their organization and establish effective relationships between stakeholders. We also work to create an implementation plan balanced with a pragmatic understanding of what is achievable in the current and future political environment.

Our Experience

Using best practice examples from the U.S., Germany, and around the world, we use a multi-faceted approach to help answer key questions related to institutional governance. This includes reviewing board structure, augmenting and right-sizing public sector staffing, improving interagency relationships, enhancing organization structure, and better assigning roles and responsibilities.

The Challenge

Automation and digitalization are pivotal in optimizing rail processes, representing a critical step in improving the reliability, availability, maintainability, and life-cycle costs of rolling stock and railway infrastructure.

Converting information to data is the starting point for this process. However, a key question for train operating companies and railway managers is how to leverage this data to achieve and optimize their business objectives, create value-enhancing opportunities, and make their operations more reliable, efficient, and adaptive.

Our Service

Digital & Agile Transformation

Digital and agile transformation is a process through which companies embrace technology and adopt an agile mindset to drive innovation, improve operational efficiency, and enhance customer experiences. Our team can help clients gain exposure to, and apply, digital solutions such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to improve many aspects of their operations including safety, security, fleet management, reliability, maintenance, scheduling, environmental monitoring, and the passenger experience.

DB E.C.O. North America will work with clients to implement agile methodologies and practices to enable faster decision-making, iterative development, and seamless collaboration across teams. By embracing digital technologies and fostering an agile culture, companies can adapt quickly to evolving market demands, deliver customer-centric services, and stay ahead of the rapidly changing mobility and transport industry.

Generating KPIs Using Big Data, Machine Learning, & AI

Data Science software and tools including Machine Learning and AI have revolutionized the way we learn, allowing us to ingest diverse forms of information, such as damage sheets, cost sheets, telematic data, sensor readings, diagnostic data, and images. By employing mathematical and statistical algorithms, we can analyze, optimize, forecast, and simulate scenarios, ultimately empowering stakeholders to make well-informed decisions.

Automation & Live Dashboards

Automating the collection, analysis, forecasting, and visualization of data are key steps toward efficient and long-term sustainable processes. We use well-established data analytics platforms containing state-of-the-art data science tools for end-to-end data analysis and drive toward automation. This includes making live dashboards that refresh regularly.

Our Experience

DB E.C.O. North America recognizes digitalization and technology as keys to success in a comprehensive rail strategy. We integrate best practices from Deutsche Bahn, who is prioritizing digital rail operations, including automated timetables and scheduling, as well as digital condition-based and predictive maintenance. For instance, Deutsche Bahn employs image-based automated damage detection in our fleet of over 300 ICE high-speed trains and our fleet of more than 80,000 freight cars.

Deutsche Bahn’s efforts in digitalization require a robust IT infrastructure centered on strong connectivity, cloud services, cybersecurity, development, and data management. For instance, a Deutsche Bahn-developed AI tool prevented 58,000 minutes of annual delay in 2022, generating a significant improvement of the punctuality in the tightly scheduled S-Bahn network.

A DB Cargo project investigating improvements in reliability, availability, maintainability, and life-cycle costs led to the saving of millions of dollars between 2017-2021. A suite of dashboards was developed to enable stakeholders to make company-wide informed decisions regarding material procurement, optimized planned maintenance strategies, and optimal choice of workshops.