Deutsche Bahn improves punctuality in August – but still misses target

Berlin. Deutsche Bahn improved its punctuality in August compared to the previous Monday – but long-distance trains still arrived late at 40.4 percent of stops. In July, the figure was 43.9 percent. According to Deutsche Bahn, in addition to numerous construction sites and disruptions, the arson attacks near Duisburg, for example, had a significant impact on traffic.

Despite the improvement, Deutsche Bahn was still unable to achieve its own punctuality target in August. Outgoing CEO Richard Lutz has set a punctuality rate of 65 to 70 percent for long-distance traffic for the entire current year. A good five percentage points are still short of this target.

A train is considered punctual in the statistics if it arrives at a stop with a maximum delay of 5:59 minutes. Cancellations are not taken into account for operational punctuality. Compared to Switzerland, for example, this is a very loose definition of punctuality.

Deutsche Bahn recorded a very significant increase in passenger punctuality in August. This describes the proportion of passengers who arrived at their long-distance destination with a maximum delay of 14 minutes and 59 seconds. In August, this figure was 66.7 percent – ​​an increase of 7.3 percentage points compared to the previous month and 2.7 percentage points compared to August 2024. Passenger punctuality also takes train cancellations into account.

RND/dpa