Based in Frankfurt am Main, Kombiverkehr Deutsche Gesellschaft für kombinierten Güterverkehr mbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft (“Kombiverkehr”) develops, organises and markets a Europe-wide network of trains for continental road-rail Combined Transport. The company acts as a service provider for forwarders and transport companies and currently has only limited assets of its own that are essential to operations. The purpose of the company is to compete with end-to-end long-distance road haulage by offering environmentally friendly and financially viable rail connections that enable forwarders to transport their shipments by a combination of road, rail and sea or inland waterway. It does so by bundling transport enquiries into quantities that can be carried on block trains. The biggest portion of the journey, known as the main leg, is handled by rail. Kombiverkehr obtains any other services required, such as terminal operations and the provision of wagons, primarily through its equity interests in companies that provide these supplementary services, thereby integrating itself into the intermodal transport value chain. The investment portfolio comprises a total of 26 companies.
Within Germany Kombiverkehr boasts the largest network for continental connections, enabling it to offer its customers overnight intermodal transport solutions between the key economic centres. The international network connects European economic centres in 25 countries across Europe. The networks are connected to each other by means of gateway hubs, in which the intermodal loading units – containers, swap bodies and semitrailers – can be transferred by crane from one train to another. Kombiverkehr operates solely according to its own terms and conditions, the revised version of which has been in force since 01.02.2024.
Founded in Frankfurt am Main in 1969, the limited partnership is an equal partnership between 222 national and international forwarders on the one side and DB Cargo AG, Mainz (“DB Cargo”) on the other. The company's articles of association give the forwarding companies and DB Cargo equal voting rights. Corporate decisions are made by the Management Board, Administrative Board and Partners’ Meeting according to their respective areas of responsibility. In the Advisory Board and the Transport, Technology and IT working groups, Kombiverkehr can call on the support of bodies in which both customers and associations come together in regular meetings to discuss key matters of transport policy and issues facing the transport sector.
