German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn’s much criticized struggles with punctuality continued in 2024, with more than a third of all long-distance trains arriving late by six minutes or more.
New data released by Deutsche Bahn (DB) on Friday showed that just 62.5% of Deutsche Bahn’s ICE and IC long-distance passenger trains were within six minutes of arriving on-time.
A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn said that 80% of all delays in 2024 could be attributed to Germany’s “outdated, fault-prone and overloaded infrastructure.”
Chronic delays on the railways have become a national embarrassment for Germany, a country which once prided itself on punctuality and reliable high-quality engineering.
The railway has been pressing the German government to fund massive investments in the country’s railroads, arguing that a lack of maintenance and investment in recent decades have caused problems and limited capacity.
Dpa obtained Deutsche Bahn punctuality metrics dating back to 2003, which showed that 2024 marked the railway’s worst on-time performance during that entire period. Punctuality data from 2002 and before was not immediately available.
Deutsche Bahn’s best performance during those 21 years was a 84.3% on-time mark in 2004.
Regional trains perform better
Germany’s regional trains were much more likely to run on-time. In 2024, 90.3% of regional passenger trains arrived within six minutes of the scheduled time, only a small dip from the 91.0% mark in 2023.
In 2020, 95.6% of stops in regional transport and 81.8% in long-distance transport were reached on time.
Delays cost millions
The constant delays on long-distance passenger trains not only get on the nerves of many customers, but also cost Deutsche Bahn significant amounts of money.
Deutsche Bahn chief executive Richard Lutz recently told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that passenger compensation payments for badly delayed trains ran into the hundreds of millions of euros in 2024.
Major work projects underway
At the same time, the spokesman referred to the rail company’s rail corridor refurbishment programme, which calls for closing major rail lines for months at a time in order to completely overhaul important parts of the network.
By 2030, Deutsche Bahn intends to fundamentally renovate 41 busy corridors. The railroad launched the effort in 2024 with an overhaul of the important Riedbahn rail line between Frankfurt and Mannheim.
“DB wants to increase the punctuality of ICE and IC trains to 75% to 80% by the end of 2027,” said the spokesman.
Years of rebuilding ahead
However, in a recent interview with dpa, the Deutsche Bahn executive overseeing the projects, Philipp Nagl, dampened passengers’ hopes for a rapid and broad impact of the Riedbahn renovation on nationwide long-distance services.
But Nagl noted that Deutsche Bahn invested almost €17 billion ($17.5 billion) in infrastructure in 2024, the most in years.
“If we continue to invest at this level over the next two or three years, we will see a reduction in the susceptibility of the infrastructure to disruption and an increase in the quality of train services across the entire network,” said Nagl, the chief executive of Deutsche Bahn’s state-owned rail infrastructure subsidiary InfraGo.
Catastrophic Euros drew ridicule
Deutsche Bahn was the subject of continent-wide ridicule in June, the railway’s worst month for punctuality, when Germany was hosting the European Football Championships tournament.
Both fans and teams suffered as only 52.9% of Deutsche Bahn trains arrived on time, drawing mockery and anger from foreign visitors and the press.
Hundreds of Austrian fans were left temporarily stranded in Bavaria, while the Dutch team was forced to travel to the semi-finals by plane instead of rail at short notice due to an hours-long delay of a Deutsche Bahn train.
Retired German football star Philipp Lahm, who was overseeing the tournament, missed the kick-off of a match in the group stage due to train problems.
As a reason for the weak performance in June, the railroad cited damage from flooding and landslides in several regions of the country, which had an impact on rail traffic.
