“Travel time is life time” – Startups as innovation partners of DB Regio Südost

Rail travel has changed significantly in recent decades. “It is no longer just a matter of transporting people from A to B, but of making travel time good and meaningful,” Sisi Zheng is personally convinced of this. As innovation manager for Deutsche Bahn AG (DB AG), she has been responsible for technology scouting in Germany and China in recent years. For the past nine months, she has now been driving innovation for DB Regio Südost as Head of Passenger Marketing and Customer Communications. In this interview, Sisi Zheng reveals the qualities that startups and established companies looking to cooperate with Deutsche Bahn should definitely have.

Ms. Zheng, since when has Deutsche Bahn relied on external partners to drive innovation?

External partners from the industry have accompanied the further development of trains over the decades. Our focus on startups has only developed over the past five to six years. During this time, our accelerator DB Mindbox, DB Digital Ventures and new departments such as the DB Regio AG Competence Center for Product Innovation in Frankfurt have emerged. Today, innovation is firmly anchored in Deutsche Bahn’s corporate strategy.

What advantage does cooperation with startups offer you?

We have found that we have to stay on the topic of innovation. The pace of developing new solutions has increased enormously. Startups are extremely flexible and unbureaucratic, and above all unconventional. We are happy to take up their solutions and then develop them further together.

Do established companies also have the opportunity to become innovation partners of DB Regio Südost?

Absolutely! It’s important to us that our partners adopt solutions from the perspective of our customers and passengers. Innovations don’t always reach the Group via accelerators or startup competitions. Direct contacts by us employees from the regions at DB Regio can also be at the beginning of a cooperation partnership.

Where do innovative ideas from your cooperation partners best become visible to passengers?

Our idea train near Frankfurt/Main, where we show what the future of regional transportation could look like, is interesting. There, for example, there are sleeping cabins, spinning bikes and climbing walls for children. Travel time is life time. Even though we certainly won’t be able to implement all the ideas, we would like to use the idea train to stimulate a rethink in the industry. Some ideas have already been implemented in certain regions, such as setting up “lounge areas” on regional trains. These are seating areas where more than four people can sit around a table, which is very practical for travel groups. In addition, user tests on the Idea Train have shown us how the lighting design in the train has a positive effect on the mood. In Bavaria, therefore, there are already strip lights in warm tones in regional trains. For us, innovation also means being able to offer W-LAN on the train, for example. That may seem obvious, but it is a technical challenge.

Do you have any recommendations for other companies that would like to cooperate with startups?

Startups think and work very differently than established companies. It’s important not to block that out right away, but to be willing to learn from each other. Openness and patience for each other are crucial.

Innovation processes in larger companies are often laborious. What advice would you give to employees who want to promote innovation in their company?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way! That also applies in the Group. We have very committed employees. If everyone knows what the goal is and everyone pulls together, things can happen quickly. My second tip is: Network, network, network. You have to know the relevant contacts to be able to make a difference.

Website: www.bahn.de

Contact: Sisi Zheng