Delays are annoying for passengers, but train cancellations are usually even more so. Last year there were more of them than before. The railway company gives a reason.
Three percent of Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance journeys were cancelled last year. That is significantly more than in previous years, when one percent of ICE and IC journeys were cancelled. In 2021, the cancellation rate was as high as three percent.
The figures come from a response from the Federal Ministry of Transport to Bundestag member Matthias Gastel (Greens), which was made available to the German Press Agency. The news magazine “Spiegel” first reported on this.
According to the ministry’s response, the number of partial cancellations in long-distance traffic has also increased since 2016 – from one percent in 2016 to three percent in 2020 and up to five percent in 2022 and 2023.
Given the figures, Deutsche Bahn should not blame all of its problems on the broken infrastructure, said Gastel. “The poor performance in long-distance traffic is also due to the frequent delays in the provision of trains and the lack of replacement trains, as is the case in Switzerland. The railway must finally take action here,” said Gastel. When asked, Deutsche Bahn stressed that the high failure rates of three percent each in 2021 and 2023 can be explained by numerous strikes in those two years.
Source: Stern
