Federal Railway Office

Federal Railway Authority
Eisenbahn-Bundesamt

logo of German Federal Network Authority
Abbreviation	EBA
Formation	1994-01-01
Type	Government agency
Legal status	Established by Act on the Federal Administration of Railway Traffic
Purpose	licensing and supervision authority for federal railways.
Headquarters	Bonn
Region served	Germany
Official language	German
President	Gerald Hörster
Website	http://www.eba.bund.de/

The German Federal Railway Authority (German: Eisenbahn-Bundesamt, EBA) has been the independent federal authority for the regulation of the railways in Germany since 1 January 1994. It is under the supervision and direction of the Federal Ministry for Transport, Construction and Housing and is headed by a president.

The EBA is the inspectorate and authorising body for the majority of German domestic, railway infrastructure companies that are owned by the government, referred to as federal railways (Eisenbahnen des Bundes or EdB), and for German and foreign railway transport operators in Germany.

Non federally owned public railways and privately operated railways are under the supervision of the German states (Bundesländer), who can choose to transfer this responsibility to the EBA (§ 5 Abs. 2 AEG). To date 13 states, with the exception of Lower Saxony, Berlin and Hamburg have chosen to do so. In such cases the EBA works under the direction of the states.

Since 1 January 2007 the EBA has run the railway vehicle register for Germany in accordance with § 5 Abs. 1e of the General Railway Law (Allgemeines Eisenbahngesetz or AEG) and the EU guidelines in §25a of the AEG and is therefore responsible for the issue of vehicle index and classification numbers.

The EBA has a flat organisational structure. Over 300 employees work at its headquarters in Bonn on the core issues, and another 1,000 people carry out the operational work of inspections and authorisations, occasionally on the spot, in twelve branches at 15 locations. Also within the purview of the Federal Railway Office is the responsibility for investigating railway accidents.

In addition, the EBA has also taken on the responsibility for the approval and oversight of maglev railways under the General Maglev Law (Allgemeines Magnetschwebebahngesetz or AMbG').

Since 1 January 2006 the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) has been responsible for overseeing access to the railway infrastructure. Detailed regulations contain rules about the non-discriminatory access to railway infrastructure and the principles for granting rewards for the use of railway infrastructure under the Railway Infrastructure User Regulation (Eisenbahninfrastruktur-Benutzungsverordnung or EIBV).