2024-08-20 02:18:57
The timetable chaos at Deutsche Bahn is becoming increasingly serious. Deutsche Bahn is likely to adjust its timetables millions of times this year alone.
Deutsche Bahn will apparently have to change its timetables two to three million times this year. This will have a major impact on passengers, reports the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ). It is a “huge problem” and will lead to a “loss of control” over the timetables, a member of the supervisory board told the newspaper.
“Timetables are no longer calculated, but only estimated,” he explained. Since the rail network has been poorly maintained for decades, new speed limits are constantly being added so that defects in the tracks, switches or bridges do not lead to accidents. According to the supervisory board, this is now happening “on a scale that was previously unknown.”
“Germany today has the oldest signal box landscape in Western Europe,” said Philipp Nagl, CEO of DB Infrago, which operates the rail network and train stations as a DB subsidiary. “In recent decades, too little has been renewed and too little has been invested in renovation.”
This also results in enormous costs, as Deutsche Bahn has to keep more and more reserve trains and the corresponding staff on standby. According to the “SZ”, this approach is unaffordable in the long term.
According to Nagl, with the largest renovation work in decades, 2024 will be the first year in which we will be able to “stop the aging of the infrastructure and initiate a turnaround.” But this will have further consequences. If trains have to switch to other routes because of closed routes where construction work is taking place, the already heavy load will increase. “We will then be driving even more on wear and tear,” says a train dispatcher to the “SZ”. He estimates that ten years will not be enough to get the rail network in order.