Transforming Cottbus – a city where heritage meets innovation

00:05 

Davion Ford 

Welcome to Better Cities by Design, a podcast brought to you by Arcadis, where we talk to change-makers who are working to make our cities better places for people to live, work and play. I'm your host, Davion Ford. In this episode, we head to the historic city of Cottbus in eastern Germany, where tradition meets cutting-edge technology in a remarkable new project from the national train operator Deutsche Bahn. We're going to explore how Deutsche Bahn, Germany's leading provider of climate-friendly mobility, is taking a significant step towards greener transportation with the construction of a state-of-the-art maintenance depot. This new facility in Cottbus is specifically designed to service the ICE-4, the newest and most advanced high-speed train in their fleet. We’ll be speaking with Marc Hermann, project lead for the maintenance depot from Deutsche Bahn, who will share insights into how this depot is not only boosting operational efficiency but also contributing to the region’s economic and environmental sustainability.

01:17 

Davion Ford 

Situated at the crossroads of two ancient trade routes, Cottbus has a rich history that dates back nearly a thousand years. From its early days as a bustling trade hub to its evolution into an industrial powerhouse in the 19th and 20th centuries, Cottbus has always been a transformative city. Coal mining, in particular, played a crucial role in this evolution, driving the city’s growth and making it the most important supplier of coal and energy in the region during the Cold War era. The legacy of coal is deeply woven into the fabric of Cottbus, and shaped its economy identity for decades.

Today, Cottbus stands at another pivotal moment in its history. As Germany transitions towards greener energy and transportation, the new Deutsche Bahn maintenance depot being built there symbolizes a shift from the city’s coal-dominated past to a future focused on sustainable mobility. This depot, which will be the largest in Deutsche Bahn’s network, is set to play a key role in maintaining the ICE-4 trains. What makes this project especially innovative is the collaborative approach that Deutsche Bahn has taken. To learn more about this, here is Oliver Bartz, Head of Alliancing at Arcadis in Germany:

02:38

Oliver Bartz

The project is being carried out using the so-called “Partnerschafts-Modell Schiene”. A partnership model, developed by the Technical University of Berlin on behalf of the main rail operator in Germany, Deutsche Bahn. This single joint agreement, of which Arcadis is a part, unites all partners through an alliancing contract. The model emphasizes partnership and integration, bringing together key design and construction teams from the outset to work together toward common cost, quality and timeline goals.

03:08

Davion Ford

As we dive into the details, our guest Marc Hermann will take us through the challenges and triumphs of building such a depot, the importance of transparent communication with the local community, and how this project reflects Deutsche Bahn's commitment to shifting more passenger journeys to railways and protecting our climate.

03:37

Davion Ford

Marc, welcome to “Better Cities by Design”.

03:40

Marc Hermann

Thank you very much Davion for allowing me to be here today.

03:43

Davion Ford

Thank you for joining the show. Really appreciate it. So for those of us who are living in Europe, especially myself in a neighboring country to Germany, we're pretty familiar with the Deutsche Bahn. I've been on Deutsche Bahn trains before, but we have an international audience for the podcast and some of our listeners may not know what all you do. So to kick things off, can you please talk a bit about the Deutsche Bahn? What your organization does and its significance for the people and the economy of Germany?

4:10

Marc Hermann

Yes, of course. Deutsche Bahn provides climate-friendly mobility in Germany. So those who want to travel sustainably take the train. That’s all around the world the same thing. But train travel in Germany is very popular. In 2023, we had a total of around 1.8 billion people travel on our DB trains. Breaking that down means every day over half a million passengers travel on long-distance or local trains. So DB has a fundamental mission: we want to shift more traffic to the railways, which is also a goal for protecting the climate. And we have an overarching strategy for that. It’s called “Starke Schiene.” Translated, that means “strong rail,” and now we are in the process of creating all the necessary conditions we need for that — especially investing in our rail network and also in our vehicle fleet.

I am working for a smaller company, a subsidiary, and I’m responsible for the heavy maintenance of high-speed trains. Those trains are regularly inspected, checked, and maintained to ensure the safety of passengers. We differentiate between operational maintenance and heavy maintenance. Operational maintenance, which involves smaller tests and measurements, typically takes place overnight in facilities throughout Germany. Heavy maintenance is scheduled after 1.65 million kilometers, and during heavy maintenance, we perform overhaul work on safety parts and all components of the trains — like the engines, wheels, controlling systems, brakes, and so on.

For this purpose, my company DB Fahrzeuginstandhaltung — which we abbreviate as FZI — operates facilities for heavy maintenance. Now in Cottbus, we are building the largest and most modern FZI facility, completion in 2026, that is specifically designed for the heavy maintenance of the ICE-4. The ICE-4 is the newest and most advanced high-speed train we have at DB.

06:32

Davion Ford

OK, so thanks for that great explanation about the work that you're carrying out for DB — which, for all the listeners out there, is the shorthand for Deutsche Bahn. Maintenance is obviously a critical aspect of any sort of public transportation company, but in particular for trains, with modern trains being such sophisticated and big pieces of equipment. What challenges was Deutsche Bahn facing that led to this decision to establish this new maintenance facility?

07:03

Marc Hermann

Yeah. We need capacity for the maintenance of the ICE-4. As I already said, the ICE-4 is our most modern high-speed train. It’s been in operation since December 2017, and the fleet has grown to a total of 137 trains. So it’s a lot more trains of that type than any other type that we operate at Deutsche Bahn.

As I already mentioned, heavy maintenance is scheduled after 1.65 million kilometers, and the first ICE-4 trains have been operating since 2017. So we urgently need additional overhaul capacity for the ICE-4 by 2026 at the latest. This is why we’re building our new facility now in Cottbus — to provide that capacity for the maintenance of the ICE-4.

07:59

Davion Ford

Ok, so by European standards, Germany is a very big country. And of course, as you mentioned, Deutsche Bahn is operating across the entire country, which means that when deciding where to establish this facility, there would have been many places where you could have potentially done this. So why did you choose Cottbus?

08:18

Marc Hermann

There are two crucial factors that made Cottbus our chosen location. First, Lausitz, the region around Cottbus is a coal region with a really long history of coal mining operations — over 100 years or longer — and now the region is facing a massive structural change. Lausitz is located in eastern Germany, south of Berlin, near the Polish border. And Cottbus is the biggest city in that region. For decades, lignite mining and coal power generation were the drivers for development and also the foundation of the economic success in the area.

However, by 2038 at the latest, coal-fired power generation in Lausitz is set to end. This means that many workers will enter the job market. And we are able to offer them new employment opportunities in our facility. Our need for skilled professionals aligns with the availability of well-trained workers in the area, so at the end, we’re able to create a kind of win-win situation there. That’s one point.

The other reason is that Cottbus is also a traditional railway location. Our Cottbus facility has existed for 150 years and was celebrating its 150th anniversary last year. Within the DB network of facilities, Cottbus is the competence center for diesel-hydraulic and diesel-electric vehicles. So you see, our own facility also has a kind of transformation process in the near future. Or hopefully, this sector will also undergo changes. So for us it’s like not only investing in the area, but also in our own facility. We’re able to provide our colleagues there with new opportunities and new jobs, and we’re very proud of doing that.

Also for our own people there, because as I already said, there is a long history in train maintenance there. There are a lot of families that have relatives working in their family history also in that facility. That really makes us proud. To invest in our own history and future.

10:48

Davion Ford

And I will just say, tt’s really nice to hear that commitment that the Deutsche Bahn has specifically to Cottbus. You don’t always hear that from big organizations in terms of really looking to create those economic benefits and make sure that a place that you’ve been invested in for such a long time is a place that you continue to invest in. So that’s really great to hear. My next question for you is actually about the ICE-4 trains. And so I understand that these are the largest capacity trains that the Deutsche Bahn is operating. And so these are really massive vehicles. I think the thing for me that I’m struggling to understand a little bit about how this works practically is how that maintenance is going to be sort of carried out. And I know that it can’t exactly be like an automobile being assembled because the trains are already there and also because the train is way bigger than an automobile moving through an assembly line. So practically speaking, how does this work? Can you paint a picture for me?

11:46

Marc Hermann

So our new facility there is especially designed for the ICE-4, and we used this greenfield site to make a complete new design for the whole process. In planning this infrastructure, we also took new approaches with the goal of making maintenance as efficient as possible. And our goal was reducing the time trains spend in the facility by 50%.

We reviewed the whole maintenance process from scratch, consulted many experienced colleagues from other facilities, and we developed a new design based on insights that we had. We put that in a 3D model, like a digital twin of the facility, and we simulated the whole production process in those new production halls while continuously optimizing all the planning again and again. At the end, we chose an approach that essentially turns specialized processes of the automotive industry literally upside down.

As you said, you can’t cycle a whole train through the process. In the automotive industry, the product goes to various workstations, each highly specialized. But you can’t move a 380-meter-long train through individual workstations in the same way. So in Cottbus, we reversed the process and synchronized the work along the length of the train instead.

That means, to enable this, we designed the hall with no columns, no obstructions throughout, allowing us to set up each workstation exactly at the point of the train where we need it along the entire length of the train. With this model—which we call the IKEA principle, I’m sure all the listeners can relate to that idea—that means all materials, all tools the workers need during the special maintenance process at that point of the train are provided by internal logistics. So once the work is completed, all colleagues move to the next station at the train, where all required materials are again already at that place. So nobody has to go searching for materials or tools or something like that.

We are able to speed up the whole process and increase productivity to its maximum. And this is the same idea that you have in the automotive industry, but turned upside down.

14:22

Davion Ford

That’s really fascinating. And actually, you definitely did paint a picture for me, so I can see it. So the Deutsche Bahn specializes in operating trains, obviously, and also train stations and getting people from one place to another. But pulling off this project in Cottbus required a lot of knowledge that’s outside of Deutsche Bahn’s core business, you know, related to things around design and construction of buildings. We’re happy to be working with you all there as a company, Arcadis, but also other types of knowledge around infrastructure, potentially also site remediation, other types of topics that can come up. So how have you been able to do this when there’s so much that needs to be done that’s outside of, let’s say, Deutsche Bahn’s normal remit?

15:08

Marc Hermann

So it started with, well it was the same question that we had to answer for ourselves. From the beginning, it was clear to us that for this new facility in Cottbus, in the middle of the city, it requires a new approach and innovation—not just for the operation of the facility, but also for the whole planning phase.

For that reason, we’re using a completely new contract model for this complex infrastructure project of this scale, for the first time. We call it the partnership model for rail. The model also exists in other sectors, but in the rail industry, we were the first one to try that approach. So it was kind of modified and developed by Deutsche Bahn, by the Technical University of Berlin, and the German Construction Industry Federation.

This alliance model reverses a bit the traditional construction model. All partners are involved in the planning phase because they knew precisely how to implement things on-site. You already said, the core business of DB is not building that kind of facilities—it’s operating those trains and doing the maintenance. So we, with our DB experts, brought all the knowledge about the processes of the maintenance of trains. And all our partners brought all the knowledge around facility construction, about process design, and all mechanical systems into the project at the beginning of our planning phases.

Now, at the end of the first production hall that we already built—and it’s already now under operation—we see that our plan was perfect for that. We see that all the goals that we had, like reducing maintenance time, cutting that in half to 50%, we see that it works just after a few months of operating in a new facility. We already reached that goal, and this is perfect. So we have proof for this partnership model now with just a little piece of our project.

17:23

Davion Ford

That’s fantastic. So a big project like this in any city, it’s inevitably going to lead to disruptions for citizens’ daily lives as well as, you know, nuisances like, for instance, noise from demolition or construction processes. And I hope you won’t be offended by me saying this, but Germans have a bit of a well-earned reputation for being, let’s say, very willing to open their voices about concerns about things. So I’ll say that maybe instead of saying complaining. So I’m curious how this effort has been received by the citizens of Cottbus. Have you had to deal with a lot of complaints?

17:59

Marc Hermann

Yeah. Well, first of all, I’m not offended because I know that. I know that it is exactly the way you just explained it. And we were so lucky to not get into that kind of struggle. We are building the new facility right in the center of the city, directly at the main train station, and so with many residents and also cultural institutions just around our new facility.

And we have not encountered that difficulties with residents, citizens in Cottbus that we’ve seen in other large DB projects, for example, in Nuremberg or Stuttgart. Why is it so? I think it’s because we are reachable by phone, by e-mail. We organize public consultations for the residents, do resident events. We know the affected residents personally, yeah, and we take their concerns seriously and address their issues, their worries, and their questions. And I think that opens the door for us—transparent communication that really builds a very, very good neighborhood relationship there.

For example, to create the space that we needed, we had to relocate a community garden association. And usually, that kills the project of that size, yeah? But of course, it causes anger and frustrations by the residents. That’s clear. But we communicated it early, and we provided adequate compensation for that. And now all the gardeners have already moved over to a new area, and most of the time the feedback that we get is that they were really, really pleased with how we communicated this. And I think this is kind of a key factor.

But that’s not all. I already said that we have a 150-year history of train maintenance in Cottbus. So many families have members who have worked in the facility for generations. So with the expansion of the facility, we’re creating new opportunities for many residents, for many families there. And all our neighbors, they say it’s kind of their facility there, and they’re very interested in the progress. And every time we are able to, we open our doors to let the neighbors in and let them see what we do in there and try to tell them how it will feel at the end when the facility is there, part of the whole neighborhood.

And now it looks like climate-friendly mobility is now a part of the Lausitz. It’s now a part of their future, that in every ICE-4 that goes out of our maintenance facility is a bit of that spirit of Cottbus and then carries a piece of Cottbus with it. And I think this is a spirit that we’ve found there before, and we were able to let it grow in the neighborhood.

21:08

Davion Ford

Such an inspiring notion and thought. And also, I mean, you’re absolutely right. We’ve seen this many, many occasions from our perspective at Arcadis, that what stakeholders really want is just to understand what’s happening, to not feel like things are happening to them but to feel like they’re part of the changes that are taking place. And when you create that buy-in, people are much less resistant to the change that’s coming down the pike.

So I’ve got one final question for you, Marc, to close out. But it’s a two-part question. So once this new facility in Cottbus is operational, what is it going to mean for Deutsche Bahn’s operations? And can you also talk about your hopes for the impact that the facility is going to have on the city and the people living there?

21:54

Marc Hermann

With the successful completion of the first production hall, we demonstrated the effectiveness of the partnership model. And I think that this model can serve as a blueprint for cooperative efforts in other large projects. And now, currently, DB is implementing other major construction projects using this model. And we now have valuable experiences. We have insights to share with all our colleagues who are now adopting this approach.

This is not only the operation of the maintenance process but also the idea of how other large projects can benefit from this opportunity of those partnership models. This is the first thing. Now, the other thing, as you said, hope for the impact on the city and the people that are living there, I think, as I said, we have become part of this transformation process in the Lausitz region. We’re creating many new high-quality jobs for the foreseeable future. And I think, together with all our partners, we’re making Lausitz more attractive again, and we’re showing that Cottbus and Lausitz are vibrant places where new opportunities exist.

And we all together are able to look forward together and can create future opportunities there. And also for young people, as the region historically suffered from young people going away looking for work somewhere else. And now we’re able to do that in the region again. This really makes me proud to be part of this transformation process.

And it’s not only for the region. As I already said, it’s also for all our colleagues in the existing facility that now switch from diesel locomotives to ICE-4. And they are also excited about something new. And this is possible, and we are proud to have contributed to it with our new facility that we are building there.

24:01

Davion Ford

Marc, thank you so much for taking the time to join the show. I really appreciate the discussion.

24:04

Marc Hermann

Thank you very much for all the questions and the discussion. I really enjoyed it too.

24:09

Davion Ford

That’s it for this episode of the show! I want to thank Marc from Deutsche Bahn for joining us. Please, stay tuned for future episodes as we continue to bring change-makers to the table who are driving progress in urban development. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and check out our other episodes. I’m Davion Ford, and you’ve been listening to Better Cities by Design, a podcast brought to you by Arcadis, the world’s leading company delivering data-driven sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. You can learn more by visiting our website arcadis.com. or by following Arcadis on LinkedIn or Facebook. And please, stay curious, get inspired, and remember, the future belongs to those who dare to make a difference in the cities we call home.