DB must do more to ensure updates on app and platform match up, says ApS

The transport association Verband Allianz pro Schiene (ApS) is urging Deutsche Bahn to ensure that delay and cancellation updates issued via the DB app, platform information board, and platform announcements match up.

Verband Allianz pro Schiene says DB delay information must be coherent

“When passengers are already fretting over unpunctual trains, they should at least have access to reliable information about train delays,” Dirk Flege of Verband Allianz pro Schiene told Berliner Morgenpost.

The transport association is calling on Deutsche Bahn to pull up its socks and make sure that delay and cancellation updates issued via the Deutsche Bahn app, via loudspeakers, and information boards on the platform are consistent for passengers.

“In the DB app, there is often different information than on the platform, and the information given in a platform announcement doesn’t match up with the information on the platform information board,” Flege told the local newspaper.

“This is an additional travel stress which absolutely nobody needs. If there are delays, then one should at least have knowledge of the extent [of the disruption],” Flege added. According to the ApS boss, the confusion arises because staff at DB gather information from multiple sources.

Government to present Deutsche Bahn reforms on September 22

Starved of government funding in the past 20 or so years, punctuality rates at Deutsche Bahn have been consistently and rapidly declining in recent years. In 2024, the punctuality rate fell to just 62,5 percent.

In mid-August, Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder (CDU) fired Deutsche Bahn boss Richard Lutz and announced that the CDU-SPD coalition government had already agreed upon plans to reform Deutsche Bahn, promising to deliver “thoroughness and diligence before speed". This plan will be presented to the public on September 22.

The government is also looking to fill the newly vacant role of DB boss. Flege suggests that once the position is filled, improving passenger information should be top of the agenda. “There are things which a new Deutsche Bahn boss should and can tackle quickly. Passenger information is one of these points, which certainly must be improved,” Flege told the paper.