German railway operator Deutsche Bahn said on Thursday it will improve the punctuality and reliability of trains over the next six months, after only 62.7% of long-distance trains reached their destinations without major delays in the first half of 2024.
Train delays have been a major problem for football fans visiting Germany during the 2024 European Championship, leading to widespread criticism of the myth that Germany is a modern and efficient country.
“We expect an improvement in punctuality in the second half of the year,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said Thursday during the presentation of the company’s half-year report in Berlin.
The aim is that by the end of the year, 63% to 67% of long-distance trains will run without major delays.
Only 52.9% of trains arrived on time in the first half of the year, with June being a particularly bad month, Deutsche Bahn said. Trains are considered delayed if they reach their destination at least 6 minutes later than scheduled.
According to the state-owned company, train traffic in Germany is being hampered by industrial strikes, poor infrastructure and unexpectedly many extreme weather conditions.
“These factors alone together cost us about 7 percentage points in punctuality,” Lutz said.
Problems with the track also led to a significant drop in passenger numbers in the first half of the year. The company said 64.2 million passengers took long-distance trains during the period, down 6% on the same period last year.
To improve the punctuality of trains in the short term, Deutsche Bahn wants to put more vehicles on standby to be able to respond to disruptions and failures.
The ICE 4 high-speed trains, which make up a large part of the long-distance train fleet, will in future be given priority for short-term maintenance work so that they can be put back into service quickly.
