In the first half of the year, millions of passengers were again annoyed by delayed and canceled trains. Improvement is not in sight, at least in the next few years.
Deutsche Bahn is still behind on its self-imposed punctuality target for 2023 in long-distance traffic: In the first six months of this year, only 68.6 percent of the ICE and IC trains were on time, as the group announced.
Deutsche Bahn has actually set itself the target of a punctuality rate of more than 70 percent for the current year. In June alone, however, only 63.5 percent of long-distance trains reached their destination without major delays. This is the worst value in the current year. The most stable month so far was January with 73.2 percent.
A train is considered punctual in the statistics as long as it does not arrive at a station with a delay of more than six minutes. Train cancellations or missed connecting trains are not taken into account. Therefore, the two warning strikes by the railway and transport union (EVG) in March and April with thousands of train cancellations do not appear in the statistics.
After all: recently things were running a little more reliably on the rails than in the previous year. In June 2022, only 58 percent of long-distance trains were on time.
Lots of construction sites
The main reason for the delays is the ailing infrastructure in many places: large parts of the DB route network, which covers a good 33,000 kilometers, are in urgent need of renovation, and there are disruptions on some routes almost every day. That’s why the railways are building and renovating where they can – and thus slowing down the trains. “Currently, almost 70 percent of the ICE and IC trains go through at least one construction site,” said the railway.
The construction sites currently having the greatest impact are running on the routes Kassel-Fulda, Nuremberg-Würzburg and at the digital node Stuttgart.
There are currently hundreds of additional construction sites because Deutsche Bahn is checking and replacing hundreds of thousands of concrete sleepers as a result of the train accident in Garmisch-Partenkirchen last year. “This involves more than 400 additional construction sites in the rail network, which have a significant impact on travelers and freight customers,” he told the group at the beginning of June.
No improvement in sight
It is not foreseeable that the punctuality problem will improve soon. Especially for the coming year, passengers will have to prepare for route closures on particularly important railway corridors due to renovation work. There will be far-reaching restrictions on the busy Hamburg-Berlin route in the second half of the year. From mid-August to mid-December 2024, around 100 switches and 74 kilometers of track are to be renewed there.
In addition, there will be the general renovation of important corridors starting next year: In the summer, things will start on the Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim, one of the busiest railway lines in Germany. It will be completely modernized and closed for half a year. In 2025, the general renovation will start again on the Hamburg-Berlin route.
Long-term goal 80 percent punctuality
Deutsche Bahn aims to ensure a high-performance network by 2030 with the general renovations on 40 routes, on which traffic runs more reliably and more trains can also run. After the Riedbahn, the Emmerich-Oberhausen route, which is particularly important for freight traffic, is to be modernized. According to a railway paper from February, it is a total of around 4200 kilometers.
The train has been chasing its punctuality targets for years. The group was particularly unreliable in 2022. In some months, almost every second train was delayed. With the general renovation of dozens of routes, the group is aiming for a punctuality rate of more than 80 percent in the medium term. When this goal is realistic is currently still completely open.
comparison with abroad
Many passengers in Germany can only look enviously at other countries. With the Swiss railways (SBB), for example, 93 percent of the trains are already on time, which means they are less than three minutes late. But the company wants to increase efficiency even further. In Japan, the trains even achieve a punctuality of almost 100 percent.
However, that is not feasible in Germany, said long-distance transport board member Michael Peterson recently. “In Germany, freight, regional and long-distance trains share one and the same rail network. This concept is not designed for 99 percent punctuality,” he recently told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”.
Source: Stern
