In addition to providing support for selected customers, one of the main tasks of the sales unit is to improve the capacity utilization of the single freight car transport system.

The sales structure is designed to ensure that DB Schenker’s market units will in future be able to focus mainly on major national customers, while regional sales provides effective support for customers with small to medium transport volume. In the startup phase, the sales unit will be responsible for just under 600 customers – incl. customers outside .

The Regional Sales Coordinators Office was created in 2004 to act as the interface between sales and operations. Its core tasks initially included identifying growth potential for rail and providing individualized consultancy services to the market units on the handling of shipments and the identification of potential for optimizing the single freight car transport system in the regions for which they were responsible. Other key tasks included public relations, lobbying and being represented in the region (e.g. Chambers of Commerce and Industry, partner railways and port authorities).

Core tasks of regional sales

In the sales organization, regional sales coordination will be enhanced and supplemented with key tasks. These include

• Regional customer support
• Market monitoring
• Optimizing the capacity utilization of the single freight car transport system by means of a greater cross-sector focus in the region

The Regional Sales Coordinators are responsible for managing the regional sales teams in twelve sales regions nation-wide. They are located in the Cargo Centers to provide close coordination with operations. The support of the Cargo Centers is essential for the success of the work performed by regional sales, particularly in terms of obtaining information and the flexible use of freight cars and locomotives. The goal is to exploit growth potential with the available operational resources that will allow DB Schenker to adapt flexibly to changing transport structures.  

Regional sales map Enlarge image: Regional sales map

Focusing on single freight car transport services

One of the core tasks of regional sales is to increase capacity utilization on the single freight car transport system using available resources. Since the introduction of the “200X production system“ in 2006, there has been a significant increase in the operational performance of the single freight car transport services. This has been made possible by concentrating services on key corridors between the major marshaling yards and by keeping the processes running for 24 hours.

Optimization of cross-border services

The improved capacity utilization of the resources available in the Cargo Centers for local services should lead to a further increase in both single freight car transport services and block train services. This includes the use of available capacity on duty journeys and additional services on less busy weekdays and on weekends. In addition, regional sales is also responsible for providing an improved capacity utilization of the single freight car transport system with services from outside . These include a greater focus on cross-border shipments, the reloading of foreign freight cars and improved coordination with international sales channel partners.