The Challenge
DB Cargo, Europe’s largest rail freight company and part of the Deutsche Bahn Group, operates a fleet of over 65,000 freight cars across the continent, moving goods across international borders and through a complex rail network. One of the company’s biggest challenges was ensuring real-time visibility and tracking the locations of its vast fleet of freight cars. Its existing system relied heavily on manual input. Employees had to confirm departures, arrivals and border crossings by entering data into the tracking system by hand. This led to frequent inefficiencies, inconsistencies and delays in order tracking.
Without an automated system, employees often updated the status of freight cars in bulk (for example, at the end of their shift), rather than in real-time. This led to inconsistent data accuracy, which, from a customer perspective, created a lack of transparency. Clients often had to contact DB Cargo for shipment updates, leading to a high volume of inquiries and inefficiencies in customer service. The delays in identifying freight car locations also impacted operational planning, making it harder for DB Cargo to optimize rail transport capacity and reduce idle time.
To improve efficiency, accuracy and transparency, DB Cargo needed a solution that would automate tracking and provide real-time updates, reducing the dependency on human input and minimizing errors.
The Approach
DB Cargo partnered with Eraneos to develop and implement Value-Added Business Events (VABEs), an intelligent automation framework that integrates GPS-based telematics with geofencing technology. The first step was to implement a comprehensive geofencing system across Europe, covering hundreds of critical locations such as rail yards, customer locations and border crossings. These virtual boundaries enable a VABE to automatically be triggered whenever a freight car enters or exits a predefined area. For example, when a freight car leaves its departure zone, the system automatically recognizes that the order has started. Once it reaches its final destination, the system automatically marks the order as completed, completely eliminating the need for employees to enter manual status updates.
To ensure accurate real-time tracking, each freight car was equipped with a GPS module that sends location updates every ten minutes while in motion, and every twenty-four hours when stationary. Eraneos integrated these GPS signals into DB Cargo’s existing cloud infrastructure to provide all stakeholders (both internal teams and external customers) with seamless access to real-time tracking data.
The VABE solution has now been fully deployed across DB Cargo’s European network, bringing greater transparency and efficiency to rail freight operations.
By leveraging these insights, DB Cargo can now monitor shipment progress in real time. This has enabled the company to transition from reactive to proactive logistics management. The new system also reduces the need for customer inquiries, as clients can now track their shipments directly through dashboards rather than calling DB Cargo for updates. In addition, it helps optimize rail network utilization by ensuring that freight cars are used more efficiently and with minimal idle time. The VABE framework is also a highly scalable solution. Since geofencing and GPS-based tracking are now integrated into DB Cargo’s existing cloud infrastructure, the solution could be rolled out across Europe without major system overhauls. The result is a fully automated, real-time tracking system that improves operations across international borders.
DB Cargo AG is Europe’s leading rail freight provider, uniquely positioned with an extensive network of 16 subsidiaries and a strong presence linking Europe and China via the Eurasian corridor. Operating Europe’s largest rail fleet – around 92,000 freight cars and 3,000 locomotives – it provides eco-friendly, multimodal logistics solutions for major industries like automotive, chemicals, and consumer goods.
The Results
Since implementing the VABE framework, DB Cargo has achieved a 60% increase in order tracking accuracy across Europe. The system accurately identifies the location of each order in near-real time, since each freight car in motion triggers a VABE every ten minutes. On average, it tracks more than 2 million freight car departures and arrivals each month, as well as more than 470,000 border crossings. This improved visibility has resulted in higher data quality that helps DB Cargo to plan and forecast operations more reliably. The system has also minimized the amount of time DB Cargo spends searching for individual freight cars, especially for cross-border freight, which was previously often difficult to precisely track.
The VABE solution has now been deployed in several countries across DB Cargo’s European network, bringing greater transparency and efficiency to rail freight operations. Through this collaboration, Eraneos has helped DB Cargo modernize its logistics management by leveraging automation to increase efficiency, transparency and customer satisfaction in Europe’s largest and most complex rail freight network. This project – which was funded by the Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahn-Bundesamt) – is a prime example of how rail logistics can rely on data-driven solutions to improve operations at scale.
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