Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing wants to speed up the renovation of the ailing railway network. “It can’t stay the way it is,” said the FDP politician on Tuesday. Wissing accepted the final report of the Rail Acceleration Commission. He spoke of “first aid for the rails”. The Commission proposes comprehensive measures. This should also increase punctuality. Approval procedures for new switches, longer passing tracks or electrification are to be accelerated. In addition, the Commission, together with representatives of the rail sector, is proposing to thin out the “funding jungle” and set up two multi-year rail funding funds.
Shares in the expected additional revenue from the truck toll should also be used for an expansion and modernization fund. The infrastructure board of Deutsche Bahn, Berthold Huber, said that the rail network could hardly cope with the high volume of traffic. “It’s simply too scarce, too old and too prone to failure. In order to be able to achieve short-term improvements here, the existing network must be renewed at high speed and its capacity expanded.” The results of the Acceleration Commission could make a valuable contribution to this.
However, the Commission’s inventory is sobering: parts of today’s rail network are overloaded and in poor condition. “Delays and train cancellations are among the consequences that rail customers feel.” From the coming decade onwards, major new construction and expansion measures should remedy the situation. Then the “Germany cycle” should come: long-distance traffic between the large metropolitan regions should be more closely timed, long-distance and regional traffic should be better coordinated. “Until then, the significantly underfunded network infrastructure will exacerbate the situation even further,” says the Commission’s report.
Call for radical reform of financing
One of the key points of their proposals is a radical reform of rail financing. So far there have been 190 funding pots, which leads to very complex administrative procedures and at the end of a budget year a lot of money has not been paid out, said Tobias Heinemann, President of Mofair, in which competitors of Deutsche Bahn are represented. That is why, according to the will of the Commission, there should only be two funds in the future, which should have an effect over several years – and not from budget year to budget year: one for the renovation of the existing network and an expansion and modernization fund – for this should also be shares in the expected additional income from the truck -Toll be used. To date, the revenue from the truck toll has been used for road infrastructure. Ultimately, the Bundestag must decide whether these funds come.
The Commission is also proposing measures that can be implemented quickly and which could already significantly improve the rail network. For example, a “priority to rail” should be introduced in planning law. The scope and duration of approval procedures should be reduced for new points, longer passing tracks or the closing of electrification gaps. Blocking times due to construction sites in the rail network are to be reduced. A renovation of so-called high-performance corridors is central. These are particularly heavily used routes on which disruptions have serious consequences for the entire train operation.