DB 2009 income falls as freight and passenger levels decline

Germany’s  Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) reported Thursday that its 2009 net income fell to 830 million euros ($1.1 billion), as passenger and freight levels declined during economic recession.

DB’s net income in 2008 was 1.3 billion; its revenue declined more than 12% to 29.3 billion euros in 2009 from 33.5 billion euros in 2008.

“Defending the company’s economic strength and reducing our indebtedness are two items that will remain at the very top of our agenda in the future,” said Ruediger Grube, DB chief executive, in a statement. “There is no reasonable alternative to this stance.”

DB said it reduced its net debt almost 6% to just over 15 billion euros at the end of 2009 from nearly 16 billion euros in 2008.

Grube said other plans for Deutsche Bahn include developing the business through several initiatives, including customer quality, engineering, and capital expenditure. As one example, the company seeks to renovate about 2,000 small and medium-sized train stations across the nation by 2011.

DB said 2009 rail passenger levels declined 0.6% to nearly 2 billion people. Rail freight levels declined 10% to 341 million metric tons (376 million U.S. tons). Bus passenger levels, however,  increased nearly 4% to 800 million people in 2009; DB is Germany’s largest bus operator.