Fewer passengers, shorter waiting times: Deutsche Bahn (DB) was as punctual in the Corona year 2020 as it has been since 15 years no longer. Overall 81, 8 percent of all ICE and IC / EC trains were on the way according to plan, the railway announced on Sunday in Berlin. That is almost six percentage points more than in the previous year with 75, 9 percent.

In regional transport, too, the railway has caught up with punctuality. To 95, 6 percent the trains of the DB Regio reached their stations according to the timetable. Deutsche Bahn considers a train to be on time if it arrives less than six minutes after the scheduled time. DB breaks this down in its punctuality values ​​online.

Shorter stopping times, fewer trains The punctuality plus goes to Half of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Fewer passengers reduced the stopping times at the stations. At times, slightly fewer trains were in use, including in freight traffic. As a result, the route network was less stressed, especially at the rail nodes. The increased punctuality had already been foreseeable since the summer.

According to Deutsche Bahn, the “Strong Rail” strategy program with which the group has been working since 2019 works on punctuality. With more than 95 construction sites per day, the number of delays due to this work has fallen by five percent. The damage caused by the weather is also continuing to decline. Because more and more new trains are on the move in long-distance traffic, the average age of the fleet and thus the susceptibility to breakdowns is decreasing.

Until 2026 the railway plans to invest around 8.5 billion euros in the modernization of the long-distance fleet alone. The company receives a new ICE 4 every three weeks. More than 15 ICE 4 are already in use. In addition, DB Fernverkehr put nine new double-decker IC trains into operation last year. On the other hand, due to the sharp drop in passenger numbers, the railway came under strong economic pressure at the beginning of the corona epidemic and needs billions in aid from the federal government.

(tiw)