DB Regio Bus, the bus division of DB Regio AG, is making a contribution to climate protection. In 2022, the Deutsche Bahn AG Group could reduce specific greenhouse gas emissions by over 42 percent compared to 2006.1 By 2040 at the latest, the entire Group is to be 100 percent climate neutral. For DB Regio Bus, not only the conversion to electric mobility and hydrogen drives for buses plays an important role, but also the modernization of the ICT landscape.

DB Regio Bus has migrated 99 percent of its entire application landscape from regional data centers to the AWS cloud, uses native and serverless cloud services, and Infrastructure-as-Code for automated, standardized and simplified infrastructure provisioning.

During the migration projects, applications were analyzed and modernized. This has led to consolidation, optimized uptime and resource savings. About 50 tons of CO2 equivalents (MTCO2e – Scope 1 and Scope 2)2 were saved via these measures.

The demand-oriented use of the entire data center infrastructure and the reduction of unnecessary computing and storage capacities have also drastically reduced the CO2 emissions of DB Regio Bus. This is done by relying on the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool to calculate the carbon footprint of the AWS infrastructure and to identify potential for reduction. Between May 2020 and December 2022, the DB Regio Bus ICT operation could save another significant contribution of approximately 114 metric tons of CO2 equivalents (114 MTCO2e) compared to operating in the outdated infrastructures.

Further changes to the infrastructure are continuously being implemented to use resources in a more cost- and energy-efficient way.

“A climate-neutral IT infrastructure is an important building block for our sustainability strategy. By optimizing uptime in IT operations, we were able to save resources and improve our carbon footprint.”
Andreas Kempchen, Head of ICT Operations DB Regio Bus

By consistently moving the infrastructure to the AWS Cloud, the overall carbon footprint can be neutralized in the next few years, as AWS plans to operate exclusively from renewable energy sources as early as 2025. By comprehensively modernizing its IT, DB Regio Bus has proven that sustainability and economic efficiency are by no means mutually exclusive; on the contrary, a modern, climate-neutral IT infrastructure can also ensure the company’s success in the long term and make an important contribution to climate protection.

[1] https://nachhaltigkeit.deutschebahn.com/de/gruene-transformation/klimaschutz

[2] GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (Scope1 – direkte Emmisionen, Scope 2 – indirekte Emissionen bspw. über Strom)