Railion Deutschland selects Quintiq and Ab Ovo in multi-million Euro deal

Mainz/Mannheim, May 23, 2003. Railion Deutschland, one of Europe's largest transport and logistics service providers has taken an important step forward in its effort to optimize and standardize the planning of its locomotives and locomotive drivers. A software program has been developed for the planning of 1.5 million cargo trains, nearly 4,200 locomotives and 8,000 locomotive drivers annually. Railion Deutschland, has commissioned Deutsche Bahn's railway IT subsidiary, DB Systems GmbH, with integrating the solution. A partner was sought in a Europe-wide bidding process, that possessed relevant experience in the field and had a standard planning tool at its disposal. The Dutch companies Ab Ovo and Quintiq won the contract. The order is worth several million euros in total.

Railion Deutschland CIO Ulrich Meuser commented: "The main thinking behind our decision to commission Ab Ovo and to use Quintiq as the standardized logistics solution was based on the good experience by our sister company Railion Benelux in the Netherlands. There they have increased the punctuality of trains from 80% to more than 90% thanks to the support of Quintiq software and the expertise of Ab Ovo. There was also a considerable improvement in using trains and drivers to their full capacity. We expect similar efficiency improvements and cost savings."

Currently all planning processes at Railion Deutschland are carried out in several separate legacy systems. In future there will be just one integrated planning system, which will undertake these tasks. It will ensure that the quality of the planning increases and the lead times for timetables are kept shorter.

For Ulrich Meuser the decision to award the contract was not difficult: "The solution from Ab Ovo and Quintiq was superior to those of the competitors. For us it was particularly important that both companies had a lot of experience in the implementation of solutions in transport and logistics planning - also in the field of rail cargo. That's why we're confident that such a large-scale, sophisticated project is in safe hands."

Ab Ovo
Ab Ovo is located in the Netherlands, with its main location in the heart of Europe's main distribution gateway, Rotterdam. Ab Ovo is an ICT total solutions provider and has an exceptionally strong presence in the travel, transport and distribution industry, ranging from cargo to passenger transportation, over land, over sea and through the air. Please visit www.ab-ovo.nl for more information about its activities and references.

Quintiq
Quintiq offers a standard software solution to virtually any planning, scheduling and supply chain optimization problem. Its breakthrough technology empowers companies with flexible solutions, enabling them to exactly model their business and optimize it fully, delivering bottom line value.

For more information please contact: Martijn van Gils, Marketing Manager Quintiq, Tel. +31-(0)73 6910739, e-mail: martijn.van.gils@quintiq.com