The railway had set itself the goal of achieving a punctuality rate of more than 70 percent for the current year. It is already clear that this will not work.
There is a lot wrong with the railways in Germany, and this was already obvious to millions of passengers before the European Football Championship. In June alone, during the first half of the tournament, almost every second long-distance train was delayed, the railway company has now announced. The last time punctuality was this bad was last November, and not for many years before that.
The railway is therefore already scrapping its punctuality target for the current year. Originally, more than 70 percent of trains were supposed to arrive on time in 2024. It is now becoming apparent that the annual punctuality will be significantly below this target, it was said.
More than one in three trains delayed in the first half of the year
According to Deutsche Bahn, in the first half of this year only 62.7 percent of long-distance trains arrived at their destination without major delays. That was almost six percentage points less than in the same period last year. The so-called passenger punctuality did not look much better in the first half of the year at 66.8 percent.
Unlike operational punctuality, the percentage of passengers who reached their destination without major delays is evaluated. Train cancellations are also taken into account. A passenger is considered late if there is a delay of 15 minutes or more. “The massive strikes, the nationwide construction work and, in particular, the extreme weather events in the first half of the year on an unprecedented scale have pushed the number down,” the railway said.
Extreme weather in June
The extreme weather conditions made life difficult for railways and passengers, especially in June. “With an average of over 400 trains per day, more than twice as many long-distance trains were affected by external influences such as landslides, flooding and dam damage than usual,” it said. “This figure was even 33 percent higher than the previous peak months during the flood disaster in summer 2021.” There have therefore never been so many weather-related delays on the railways.
But strikes and bad weather only partially explain the railway’s low reliability. After all, the company has been struggling with high delay rates for years. The main reason for this is the poor infrastructure, which has been running into wear and tear for decades due to a lack of funding. This was particularly painful during the European Football Championship.
Loud criticism of railways after European Football Championship
Among other things, the Dutch team had to travel to the semi-finals by plane instead of train due to a delay of more than two hours. At the start of the tournament, hundreds of Austrian fans were stranded in Bavaria because a construction site was not finished on time as planned. Tournament director Philipp Lahm missed the kick-off of a match in the group phase due to train problems.
The railway company acknowledged problems several times and apologized to passengers. But the negative headlines led to loud criticism, including from politicians.
General renovation should fix it
The criticism of the railway was so severe that even its competitors felt compelled to come to the aid of the state-owned company. “From our point of view, the federal government must first and foremost be honest,” said Peter Westenberger, managing director of the competitor association Die Güterbahnen, a few days ago. For years, criticism of the declining quality and capacity of the rail network has been “brushed aside”. “Germany is still ruining its rail network by cutting costs – and that is why the European Championship traffic may not have been the last embarrassment.”
However, things have been moving for some time now. The federal government wants to modernize the rail network with unprecedented billions of dollars. The complete renovation of the Riedbahn between Frankfurt and Mannheim has been underway since this week. The busy corridor will be completely closed until mid-December. After that, the route will remain free of construction for several years.
According to this concept, another 40 heavily used sections of track are to be made fit again by 2031 and punctuality is to be gradually improved. “With the renovation of the rail network, it will also become more resilient to extreme weather events,” the railway announced. Football fans are not the only ones hoping that the plan will work.
Source: Stern
