“Of course, like all travelers, I also plan a buffer,” says the railway boss

Anyone who travels with Deutsche Bahn knows the problem: delays are part of everyday life for many travelers. Railway boss Evelyn Palla also plans extra time for her own train journeys. “Of course, like all other travelers, I also plan a buffer,” said Palla in an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”.

How much additional time you allow for depends on the route in question. If she were traveling from Berlin to North Rhine-Westphalia, she would “certainly not schedule an appointment ten minutes after the scheduled arrival.” On the Berlin-Munich route, however, it requires less buffer.

The railway continues to have a major problem with punctuality in long-distance transport. Since June, only a little more than half of all long-distance trains have reached their destination on time month after month.

In the interview, Palla also defended the pace of the ongoing modernization work. Although the railway is building and modernizing at a record pace, it is currently not managing to renew faster than the systems in the rail network are aging. What has been missed over decades cannot be made up in one or two years.

An independent commission is now to examine how much train traffic the rail network can reliably handle in its current state. Palla emphasized that this was by no means a matter of randomly canceling trains. Rather, the goal is a robust timetable that people can rely on.

The railway also wants to make it even easier for families to travel on ICE trains: travelers with children should be given significantly more space. “With the permanent family ticket, we have already created good solutions on the tariff side,” said Palla. “Now we want to offer families even more space on our ICE trains and make the family areas even more attractive.”

The railway company will soon present how the trains will be converted. However, there will not be a playground with a slide like on some northern European trains. “We will not be putting carousels on the trains,” Palla said. “But we are making it much more pleasant and easier to travel with children with us.” Palla emphasized that the ICE is already a good product in international comparison. “But we want to get even better.”