Train punctuality markedly declines in July
German Railway Fails to Meet Punctuality Target in July 2021
The state-owned German railway company, Deutsche Bahn, has announced that its long-distance trains had an operational punctuality of 56.1% in July 2021, falling short of the predicted target of between 65 and 70 percent for the year.
This failure to meet the target was primarily due to a combination of factors, including soaring traffic overwhelming an aging network and Deutsche Bahn's workforce planning issues. Chronic underinvestment in infrastructure and maintenance, which degraded the rail network's reliability over time, also contributed to the high delay rate.
Several reasons for the high delay rate were cited, including ongoing construction sites, heatwave-related trackside fires, a software update by a supplier, and an act of arson on the infrastructure. The act of arson resulted in restrictions in train traffic on the heavily used Duisburg-Düsseldorf route.
A train is considered late if it is delayed by six minutes or more. However, it's important to note that operational punctuality does not take into account breakdowns. Breakdowns are factored into passenger punctuality, which measures the proportion of passengers who arrived at their destination with a maximum delay of 14 minutes and 59 seconds.
In July 2021, the passenger punctuality was 59.4%, a significant decrease compared to over 67% in the previous year. This indicates that while operational punctuality was lower, the impact on passengers was even more pronounced.
One of the factors contributing to the software update-related delays was a reduction in maximum speed in the Cologne/Rhine-Main region for several days. Heatwave-related trackside fires also played a role in the high delay rate.
Deutsche Bahn is far from achieving the target operational punctuality rate in July. This operational punctuality figure is a decrease of nearly 6 percentage points compared to July 2020. It's worth noting that passenger punctuality in July 2021 was lower than the operational punctuality for the same month.
These long-term structural problems, such as capacity overload, aging infrastructure, and insufficient staffing planning within Deutsche Bahn, have been recognized for several years. Punctuality gradually worsened from less than 16% delayed trains in 2004 to over 37.5% delayed in recent years, including the period around 2021.
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