Securing facilities, maintenance workflows, and IT infrastructure

DB faced unique challenges in those three different departments. In facility management, train crews stranded by schedule changes needed an efficient way to access dormitory rooms. In the ICE train maintenance plant in Hamburg, technicians needed a fail-safe way to ensure they’d disconnected high-voltage power before working on machine compartments.

Finally, DB Sicherheit knew they needed to deploy key management systems at vulnerable stations, but they had to do so quickly due to imminent security concerns and without waiting for IT to provision additional network infrastructure.

To address these varied needs, DB used several distinct ecos configurations:

• Facility Management: Their first ecos system deployment was in 2005, when they provisioned crew dormitories with 24/7 key cabinets, allowing stranded train crews to independently arrange and access their rooms upon late arrival.
• Maintenance Lockout: A specialized key exchange system was installed in 2014. It ensures that the key for the train's high-voltage supply is securely locked inside the cabinet before a secondary key can be issued to open technical compartments. That helps ensure crew and machine safety.
• IT Infrastructure: DB Sicherheit successfully rolled out cabinets equipped with GSM networking that connects cabinets directly to the ecos cloud. Security managers can now independently deliver a system to any location, plug it into standard power, assign authorizations, and have it ready for use immediately.

Train crews now have immediate access to rest facilities, vastly improving their safety and work life. Maintenance workers are protected by a digitally accurate, automated physical safety check. For physical security deployments, the cellular cloud solution provided the flexibility crucial for DB to secure vulnerable stations ASAP.