Coca-Cola

Your benefits at a glance

Door-to-door solution from a single source
Optimized for overnight intermodal transport
Sophisticated round-trip concept for the bottle cycle
Possible without a private siding through the use of swap bodies and trucks
Connecting all 15 locations in Germany across 21 rail routes
Equipment is provided, with no separate rental required

Coca-Cola relies on DB Cargo's round trip concept

The collaboration between DB Cargo and Coca-Cola has been a success story for years—and it is far from over. New locations are added to the network almost every year; by 2023, 15 sites across Germany were already connected by 21 rail routes. This dense network creates a sophisticated round-trip concept within the company’s bottle cycle, with DB Cargo ensuring that empty and full bottles are always available at the right locations. And it operates at high speed, as the concept enables full and empty bottles to be transported faster than would be possible within the single-wagon system.

Perfectly organised door-to-door solution

Of course, not every location has its own siding. Nor is one necessary: the network is optimized for intermodal transport with truck pre-carriage and onward carriage and is tailored to Coca-Cola’s requirements. Swap bodies enable fast transshipment from truck to rail and back to truck at the destination—a perfectly organized door-to-door solution. Coca-Cola does not need to rent or purchase the required 45-foot swap bodies itself, as DB Cargo provides them as part of the collaboration.

The close collaboration between the two partners enables large-scale transport of beverage bottles: several journeys each day save substantial amounts of CO2e and reduce road traffic (external link: Emissions data | German Environment Agency) So there are even more winners than the two partners alone.