German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) has reached its worst punctuality record in at least two decades in 2024.
Only 62.5% of its ICE high-speed and long-distance trains arrived on time at their destinations, considered punctual if they are delayed by a maximum of six minutes.
A DB spokesman attributed 80% of the delays to “obsolete, failure-prone and overloaded infrastructure”.
The continuing fall in German train punctuality is a national scandal in a country that once prided itself on punctuality and reliable technology. In the last two decades, the best year for punctuality was 2004, when it was 84.3%.
Over the last few years, the drop has been steep, from 81.1% in 2020 to 75.2% the following year and so on until 2024.
The company is urging the German government to invest massively in the rail network to solve problems arising from a lack of maintenance and investment.
The delays have caused not only irritation among passengers but also significant costs for DB in compensation. Despite these problems, DB expects to improve the punctuality of its long-distance trains to 75-80% by the end of 2027.