“The train is cancelled. The reason for this is a short-term illness on the part of the staff. We apologize.” Nasty surprises of this kind are becoming more and more common at Deutsche Bahn (DB) stops these days and weeks. Current statistics show that in the past two years, the state-owned company has never canceled so many regional trains due to a lack of staff as this spring.
The Federal Ministry of Transport has now reported 9725 trips that did not take place in response to a request from the Bundestag faction of the left for the second quarter of 2022, i.e. for the months of April, May and June. That is twice as many failures as a year ago, in spring 2021. State Secretary Michael Theurer (FDP), Federal Government Commissioner for Rail Transport, cites “personnel bottlenecks” as the reason. These include short-term sick leave and “disposition decisions” (meaning internal instructions).
According to Theurer’s statistics, the number of train cancellations has almost tripled compared to the summer quarter of 2020, when 3136 trips did not take place. Since then, sometimes more, sometimes fewer regional trains have failed – but never as many as this spring. The statistics from the Federal Ministry of Transport are based on information from Deutsche Bahn on its local transport subsidiary DB Regio. Accordingly, from mid-2020 to mid-2022, a total of 45,431 regional trains failed due to staff shortages.
Theurer’s response to the left does not reveal the extent to which the topic of corona plays a role here. At the request of the SZ, the Ministry of Transport referred to Deutsche Bahn. A railway spokeswoman explained to the SZ: “As everywhere in Germany, DB is again affected by increasing corona cases, which can have a regional impact in the short term.” However, in recent years, the railways have always been at a record level, around 20,000 people per year. “This year, DB will hire around 24,000 job promises, even 15 percent more than planned,” said the spokeswoman. In total, around 4,500 new jobs would be created this year in addition to the compensation for departures.
This confirms what has already become apparent with the S-Bahn in Hanover and other public companies: Accordingly, numerous employees who have been infected with the corona virus will be absent in these weeks and months. Left MP Bernd Riexinger, a member of the Bundestag’s Transport Committee, sees other reasons above all. “This development does not surprise us, since Deutsche Bahn only pays the future minimum wage of twelve euros to tens of thousands of employees.” With this personnel policy, the railways are not an attractive employer.
Riexinger: “We demand that the employees of Deutsche Bahn be classified fundamentally higher in collective bargaining and thus be paid better than the statutory minimum wage. In addition, there is a need for an offensive for additional staff and the associated better working conditions.” In view of the widespread spread of the corona virus, however, this explanation is likely to be too short-sighted.
The total number of canceled regional trains is likely to be significantly higher. On the one hand, because the statistics from the Ministry of Transport only refer to DB Regio, but private railway companies are now also using the rails of the state-owned DB in many federal states. On the other hand, train cancellations are currently increasing due to the sometimes poor condition of the rail network. These failures are not recorded in the statistics of the Ministry of Transport.
According to this statistic, 0.3 percent of Deutsche Bahn’s regional trains were canceled this spring due to staff shortages. 0.3 percent, that doesn’t sound like much – but there were a total of 9725 connections in 91 days. So more than 100 regional trains a day.