Should demand increase for additional trains with a €49 ticket? Not likely, according to Deutsche Bahn. The company now wants to invest more in the rail network.
If demand for regional transport increases due to the introduction of a 49 euro ticket, Deutsche Bahn sees little scope for a larger offer. “In regional traffic, there is no room for additional trains around main junction stations,” said Berthold Huber, member of the railway board responsible for Welt am Sonntag’s infrastructure.
Bahn board: “Infrastructure is dense”
You can no longer create a quarter-hour cycle from a half-hour cycle. “Infrastructure is dense.” It is necessary to try to get more seats on trains, but there are limits here too.
Huber: The network must be expanded
Huber explained that the top priority should be the renewal and capacity expansion of the legacy network, which is becoming more and more susceptible to failure.
“This year, punctuality is unacceptable and infrastructure is causing a large part of this problem,” Huber said. The renewal backlog has the following amounts: 50 billion euros.
Therefore, significantly more funding is planned for 2023 than the federal budget provides, even if this amount is burdened by Deutsche Bahn’s economic outcome, according to Deutsche Bahn’s infrastructure board member. Because there is no money, less maintenance is no longer an option.
Source: ZDF
